Pakistan beyond COP28
pakistan is the eighth most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis, responsible for less than 1% of the world’s planet-warming gases. Flash flood, changing weather patterns, cyclone, rising temperature…. What is happening right now at 1.2 degrees centigrade of warming of planet earth is not because of the poor people in Pakistan, we are not responsible for it, and this brings out the issue of climate justice in a very clear form. The people of Pakistan, are paying the price in their lives, their livelihoods for the industrialization of rich countries that has resulted in this climate change. Pakistan was in “a position to present a strong case” at the COP27 international climate talks in Egypt last November that other nations should help it pay to pick up the pieces. Developed and developing nations have remained generally divided over the issue for years, as historically, the US accounts for the most greenhouse gas emissions in the world.
While the establishment of the Loss and Damage Fund at COP27 in 2022, was a huge achievement, developing countries need promises made at COP27 to materialize into substantial support. the establishment of a fund to pay poor nations for the loss and damage they are suffering due to climate change.
That is an admission that three decades of negotiations have failed to mitigate emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) that are warming the atmosphere or to enable people adapt to the impacts of climate change. That is why the negotiators have been forced to launch a fund to deal with loss and damage, though all its modalities are supposed to be worked out in future. The aim of the Loss and Damage Fund is to provide financial assistance to poorer nations as they deal with the negative consequences that arise from the unavoidable risks of climate change, at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt last November, a group of 134 African, Asian and Latin American states and small island nations finally won agreement on a new fund that will pay to repair devastated property, or preserve cultural heritage before it disappears forever, But the details of where the money will come from and how it will be disbursed were left to be worked out by this December’s COP28 conference in Dubai.
And this would be a key expectation from the upcoming COP28 that how the Loss and Damage Fund works?
Among other central expectations for COP28, is that nations (responsible for climate crises) will come forward with enhanced climate commitments. This means setting more ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, transitioning to renewable energy sources, and curbing deforestation.
Climate justice campaigners and others, meanwhile, are pushing for the new fund to have a broader scope, which would include helping finance the humanitarian response to climate disasters as well as efforts to cover gaps, especially in terms of building resilience. A part from dealing global stake holders (COPs-Conference of the parties/United Nations Climate Change Conferences) for addressing climate crises, Pakistan needs to strengthen its political will, re-align its institutions, and compose all kind of efforts to adopt Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) which is a crucial element in climate change prevention and adaptation.
DRR efforts often involve advocating for policies and regulations that support climate-resilient development. This can include building codes, land-use planning, and environmental protection measures right from community/local to national level. It is good to know that some amazing initiative being taken from institutions as a public-privet partnership such as “READY – Ready Early Actions to Disasters Around the Year” since 2019 and newly launch project BRAND “Building Institutional Capacity and Resilience Against Natural Disasters by WHH (Welt Hunger Hilfe) with a holistic and cooperation mechanism with most of the stakeholders who actually addresses climate crises and disaster risks on ground.
It is need of juncture, that beyond all the sophisticated protocols and complex jargons, there is a dire urgency to engage local and indigenes community and local authorities (local government representative at grass root level) and align them to the NDM-PDM-DDM. (national/provincial/district Disaster Management Authorities) so that the National Summer Emergencies plan 2023- prepared by NDMA will be carry out with all its core, purpose and most possibly composed manners.
Indigenous community specially women play a significant and often under-recognized role in Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and climate change prevention. They contribute to these efforts in unique and valuable ways, leveraging their traditional knowledge, community roles, and deep connection to the environment. Indigenous women possess valuable traditional knowledge about their ecosystems, including weather patterns, local plants, and natural resources. They use this knowledge to predict and respond to climate-related risks, such as changing weather conditions and the behavior of local wildlife.
The disconnect between the reality of climate change and the artificial bubble in which national climate stakeholders negotiates IDSS (Integrated Decision Support Systems) implantation plan should be wider and beyond the limitations of any project or program but a lifestyle -kind of -changing adoption & mechanism from an individual to intuitions.
Just beyond the reviewing, planning and discussing on climate crises, the time comes to action for now or never!
About Samreen Khan Ghauri:
She is SBCC (Social Behavior Change Communication) specialist, a development professional and climate activist from the heart of indigenes community of Indus civilization at Hyderabad, Pakistan. She can be reach on samreenkghauri@gmail.com
