Climate resilience is at the forefront of Pakistan’s agenda as the country continues to recover from the devastating super floods of August 2022. A high-level partners’ conference was held in Geneva to address the financial needs and strategy for a resilient recovery. Co-hosted by the United Nations and the Government of Pakistan, the conference brought together heads of state, representatives from international banks, and climate stakeholders from both the public and private sectors. These prominent figures pledged their generous support to Pakistan during these difficult times. It is worth mentioning that Pakistan played a critical role at COP 27 in establishing funds for Climate Loss and Damage in 2022, highlighting the country’s commitment to addressing the impacts of climate change.
The international community came forward in Geneva to help Pakistan, a climate-vulnerable country, in its resiliency and rehabilitation efforts following the massive floods of last year. Despite not being a significant contributor to carbon emissions, Pakistan is disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. The country has more than 7,200 glaciers, the largest ice outside the poles, which are shrinking due to global warming and funnelling extra water into the rivers.
The changing precipitation pattern in plain areas further increases water availability, leading to massive floods. The United Nations estimates that Pakistan will need $16 billion to recover from the flood victims in 2022 alone, which displaced nearly 33 million people and left 1700 dead. This disaster also pushed 9 million people into poverty, leaving thousands in need of health care, education, and food in challenging weather conditions. In response to the devastating floods, the United Nations took the lead in organizing a platform for support with the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shahbaz Sharif, and the Foreign Minister. The goal was to raise half of the recovery bill through the initiative “Climate Resilient Pakistan.” However, the cooperation and support from the international community exceeded expectations. The commitments from international banks and financial institutions alone exceeded $9 billion, in addition to additional assistance from multilateral and bilateral partners.
Despite not being a significant contributor to carbon emissions, Pakistan is disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change. The country has more than 7,200 glaciers, the largest ice outside the poles, which are shrinking due to global warming and funnelling extra water into the rivers.
Prominent financial institutions such as the Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the Asian Development Bank made generous commitments, with the Islamic Development Bank alone pledging $4.2 billion. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, France, China, the US, the European Union, Germany, Japan, the UK, and Azerbaijan also pledged significant financial contributions to Pakistan’s resiliency efforts, with Saudi Arabia committing $1 billion, France $345 million, China $100 million, US $100 million, European Union $93 million, Germany $88 million, Japan $77 million, UK $10 million, and Azerbaijan $2 million. The conference in Geneva served as a significant effort to bring the international community together to reaffirm its support for Pakistan. This country was particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change in 2022. The floods that occurred in that year submerged more than half of Pakistan’s territory, impacting agriculture, communication networks, livestock, and the transport sector. The United Nations and other contributing actors, including the European Union, Asian Development Bank, and the World Bank Group, conducted a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment and estimated that $16 billion would be needed for recovery. To guide its reconstruction efforts in a coordinated and transparent way, Pakistan developed the Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Framework (4RF). This framework not only provides effective plans but also insight into the finances, implementation, and monitoring of resilient recovery in Pakistan. In this manner, the conference in Geneva provided the much-needed finances to kickstart recovery and rehabilitation efforts in Pakistan, assisted by international bodies.
The success of this conference is a testament to the commitment of Pakistan’s leadership to addressing the issue of climate change and their efforts to engage with the international community. Climate change is one of the few global issues where achieving consensus is crucial, and Pakistan recognizes the need for collective action to address the challenges posed by a changing climate. As a country that is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, Pakistan understands that it cannot tackle this issue alone, given its transnational nature. It is therefore the responsibility of the international community, particularly those nations with high carbon emissions, to take action. Pakistan has previously demonstrated its commitment to addressing climate change by using its diplomatic capital at the United Nations Climate Change Conference COP 27 in Sharm-al-Sheikh, Egypt. The country successfully brought attention to the needs of vulnerable states and secured funding for Loss and Damage caused by Climate change, which was ultimately approved. Pakistan also supported the Group of 77 and China in their efforts to secure funding for developing nations, which COP-27 committed to providing worth $30 billion.
In essence, climate change enabled Pakistan to capitalize on its diplomatic clout in creating the realization that combating the adverse impacts of climate change is not the responsibility of a single state. Since the threat is transnational, it requires a multi-lateral response in mitigation, resiliency, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Pakistan must use these financial resources under strict control and transparent manner to sustain the confidence of the international community and create the scope for future cooperation.
The writer is the Director of Institute of Peace and Diplomatic Studies