The 2022 floods that devastated one-third of Pakistan were catastrophic on a massive scale. The floods displaced millions, destroyed infrastructure over thousands of kilometres, killed livestock, and devastated crops. Driven by necessity and urgency, Pakistan emerged to lead the Group of Developing Countries under the G77+China at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP27). Pakistan, as the chair of the Group of 77 plus China, represented 134 countries and formal sub-groups, including 46 least-developed countries and 40 developing countries comprising small islands and advocated for doubling the financial assistance to the nations suffering the adverse effects of climate change.
COP27 concluded with the historic decision to establish and build consensus regarding setting up a “Loss and Damage Fund” to assist nations at great risk from climate change. Previously, the committee on “The International Loss and Damage Executive” was established at the COP19 conference in Warsaw, Poland, in November 2013. The consensus was arrived at after rounds of intense negotiations to establish the fund to compensate vulnerable nations for the loss and damage inflicted by climate-induced disasters. For Pakistan, COP27 also offered exposure to new, innovative approaches for conducting regional climate diplomacy. It was a remarkable achievement for Pakistan to bring to the table the world’s largest economies and emitters – the US, EU, China, and India – and convey the concerns of nations dealing with the consequences of climate change. The issues related to climate change are not confined to the domestic level but span national, regional, and international boundaries.
For Pakistan, COP27 offered exposure to new, innovative approaches for conducting regional climate diplomacy.
Climate diplomacy has evolved into a distinctive area that deviates from several accepted norms of traditional diplomacy. Since climate diplomacy builds on avoiding zero-sum calculations and creating win-win scenarios, there is a window of opportunity for Pakistan to utilise institutional mechanisms to engage other nations in various critical climate-related and multilateral environmental agreements. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA), in an official statement on COP27, also highlighted Pakistan’s intent to contribute constructively to the global climate change debate, negotiations, and actions. While Pakistan successfully steered negotiations leading to a landmark agreement on the “Loss and Damage Fund”, the next step is to seek out and utilise skilled, knowledgeable human resources and expertise to allocate and manage the funds in the best possible way.
Recently, Pakistan also co-hosted the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan with the United Nations in Geneva on January 9, 2023. It turned out to be a success with international financial institutions pledging US $10 billion for flood-affected areas’ rehabilitation, recovery, and reconstruction. Pakistan will need to actively engage with the signatories to ensure that the disbursement of the pledged funds happens in a timely and effective manner.
To this end, Pakistan should apply the lessons learnt from the previously allocated Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) initiated by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as part of the mechanisms defined in the Kyoto Protocol to fund greenhouse gas emissions-reducing projects.
For the efficacy in utilizing the established loss and damage fund in COP27 and other green-financing mechanisms, Pakistan needs to focus on capacity building and technical expertise, as well as mapping out new developmental frameworks. This would also entail developing indigenous solutions to adapt to climate change, keeping in mind locally accessible technologies, materials and financial constraints. The scope of the required solutions ranges from technological implementations to agriculture to modifying social and cultural norms, attitudes, and practices.
A lot may be achieved by building alliances and coalitions with other developing countries in the Group of 77 plus China. Pakistan also needs to urge the developed states to take on a more significant role in addressing the issue by leveraging more support in devising a viable and sustainable financial mechanism. COP27 opened a new avenue for Pakistan to take a leadership role on a pressing matter for many countries of the world, and Pakistan needs to keep up the momentum in raising the voices of vulnerable states by using effective climate diplomacy at the regional and international levels.
The writer is a researcher at the Centre for Aerospace and Security Studies (CASS), Lahore, Pakistan. He can be reached at [email protected].