Climate and commitment

How does Pakistan adapt to climate change? The urgency of adapting the country’s approach to development to the reality of climate change cannot be emphasised with more fervour. A detailed report was recently submitted before the National Assembly which confirms that Pakistan has suffered over $20 billion in losses due to climate change. However, despite the high losses, Pakistan has still made no commitment to reducing carbon emissions. According to the report, the government has accepted that despite being among the countries most vulnerable to climate change we have low technical and financial capability to adapt to it. Responding to a question to the Ministry of Climate Change, the government has also admitted that the coastal environment, dry land ecosystems, agriculture, livestock, forests, biodiversity and healthcare are all being affected by changes in the world climate. Floods, droughts, variable monsoons, cyclones, disease epidemics, heat waves and melting glaciers are all connected to major changes in climate. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Pakistan has been without a climate change minister since August this year. A National Climate Change Policy was approved in 2012 but there has been little movement in terms of implementation.
The climate change conversation is essential after a World Bank report’s prediction that Pakistan’s lowest 40 percent of earners will see an eight percent reduction in earnings by 2030. Crop failures, food prices and disease outbreaks are the likely cause. The report also predicts that another 100 million people will fall into the poverty trap due to these changes. In this context, it is encouraging to know that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is set to attend a United Nations conference on Climate Change in Paris at the end of the month. However, Pakistan is yet to have submitted any Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) on climate. And going by current reports we are not likely to make any specific commitments towards countering climate change. This negates the whole point of PM Nawaz attending the conference in the first place. Looking at the government’s developmental priorities, countering climate change hardly seems to be a priority. What we need to ask is how building a greater fossil fuel dependency, including new coal and gas-fired power plants, help Pakistan against climate change. Pakistan, like much of the world, has a Janus-faced approach to climate change. It has decided to add the words ‘climate change’ to its repertoire, but its developmental approach remains the opposite. While we are willing to give verbal commitments to countering climate change, no one in Pakistan seems to be ready to have a serious discussion on the challenge yet.