Global North urged to fulfil its commitment of carbon reduction

Islamabad : The richer countries in Global North must fulfil their commitment of carbon reduction while the poor countries like Pakistan needs to adapt to on climate change and develop resilience to natural disasters, said Dr Adil Najam, dean emeritus at the Boston University, USA.

Dr Najam was delivering a lecture on ‘From Indus to Sharm el Sheikh: A ‘desi’ perspective on climate change’, organised here by Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI).

Dr Najam said that climate is no longer a future issue, so the use of future connotation for climate makes people believe that they have more time whereas recent extreme climate events proved otherwise. The context of climate change for Pakistan is not the same as it is for rest of the world, particularly the Global North, he said adding “We have lost the window of opportunity where we together could control Climate Change and now the impact on every country is different.”

For Pakistan, he maintained, the real barometer is Indus. How climate change interacts with us is not the same as rest of the world, therefore, we must be the providers of agenda on climate change, and not the receivers.

He said it’s the time to go for adaptation, as the onset of climate change has fundamentally changed the nature of climate policy and climate politics.

Dr Najam recalled that Paris Agreement had promised very low emissions, as it made climate action and commitments a voluntary action rather than a legal compulsion like in Kyoto Protocol. Since the first COP held 27 years before, financing commitments were made but never made available.

No country ever demonstrated commitment to 1.50C temperature and there is no scientific way to achieve the commitment, he said adding that now even 2.0C is no longer achievable for climate change mitigation.

He said Pakistan is essentially the Indus Basin that can sustain a thriving civilization from its source to its delta. “Indus tells us that we are facing a civilisational challenge,” he said, adding that the Indus sustained the civilisation and may not do so for the next 100 years.

Dr Adil said the notion of lack of finances is a blatant lie, there is a lack of belief in on climate change being an existential threat. He said that after every climate catastrophe, economic activity will continue as victims will pour from their savings and pump into the economy for their survival which reiterates that money is not an issue.

He urged that Pakistan’s climate diplomacy must move from “additionally to talk on loss and damage, from mitigation outsourcing to climate adaptation as development and from climate assistance to climate justice.” The market for climate disaster expands and the margin for relief is shrinking, he concluded.

Earlier, Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director, SDPI, said that Pakistan is chairing group of 136 countries at COP 27 and with these countries on-board Pakistan will push the global north for their lack of commitment to climate action.