Sherry receives Kerry’s phone call

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman received a phone call on Thursday from United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry and discussed the need for energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and committed to a renewed working partnership between Pakistan and the United States.

Furthermore, they talked about Pakistan’s commitment to a Global Methane Pledge, and suggested cooperation on the path forward. John Kerry congratulated Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman on assuming office and expressed the desire to continue working together for tackling climate change issues.

During the phone call, Sherry Rehman underscored that Pakistan is consistently placed in the top ten most vulnerable countries in the world impacted by climate change, which has now become an existential threat to the country.

She apprised Senator Kerry about Pakistan’s accelerated vulnerability to the climate crisis, saying that despite producing less than one percent of GHG emissions, Pakistan is now the ground zero of a global climate catastrophe. 

She said the country is lurching from unprecedented heatwaves, to critical glacial melt, drought one month and flooding in another. 

While high climate commitments are important, she said including Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that include an enormous energy transition, Pakistan is facing down the costs of global warming at 9.1 percent of its GDP, which is the highest in the region as identified by a recent UN-ESCAP 2022 report. 

“The time to intervene is now, as water scarcity by 2025 is also a looming crisis if current trajectories continue,” she said. 

Senator Sherry Rehman appreciated the Biden administration’s commitments to global climate goals and thanked Senator Kerry for his strong personal leadership of these most defining challenges for the 21st Century.