SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif Tuesday called on the international community to take joint responsibility for climate change, adding Pakistan needs additional funding, not debts, to rebuild a resilient and adaptive infrastructure in the face of climate change.
“In Pakistan, more than 30 million people have been severely affected; floods caused widespread destruction due to unusual rains; 8-thousand-km-long roads, 3-thousand-km-long railway tracks were affected,” the prime minister said at the COP27 UN climate summit.
At High-Level Segment of #COP27, I presented flood devastation in Pakistan as an example of what climate change can do to a country. I drew the attention of the global leaders to the need for bridging massive financing gaps, inclusion of loss & damage in the agenda.
— Shehbaz Sharif (@CMShehbaz) November 8, 2022
He told the international gathering that climate change-induced catastrophic flooding in Pakistan had impacted 33 million people -the size of three European countries – with more than half being women and children.
PM Shehbaz highlighted that the floods had destroyed over 8,000 kilometers of highways, damaged more than 3,000 kilometers of railway tracks, and washed away crops over four million acres.
“The Post-Disaster Needs Assessment estimates over $30 billion in loss and damage.”
He said that Pakistan suffered the manmade disaster despite less than one percent contribution to the carbon footprint, adding that amid these disastrous conditions, flood-hit Pakistan had to import wheat, palm oil, and “very expensive” oil and gas spending around $32 billion.
PM Shehbaz said the world has time and again discussed climate change, but no substantial results have come out of those discussions.
He noted that in Pakistan, wheat, edible oil, and other goods have to be imported now after the floods destroyed agricultural crops. “On the one hand there’s such a huge disaster and lack of resources and on the other hand import costs are major challenges.”
The prime minister said Pakistan requires billions of dollars for the rehabilitation of the flood-affected people and called upon the international community to aid the country.
Highlighting Pakistan’s priorities, the prime minister emphasized prioritizing the Global Goal on Adaptation both in terms of financing and timelines. “The current financing gap is too high to sustain any real recovery needs of those on the frontlines of climate catastrophe.”
He went on to say loss and damage needed to be a part of the core agenda of COP27 to meet the pressing humanitarian needs of those who were trapped in a crisis of public financing fueled by debt and yet had to fund climate disasters on their own.
PM Shehbaz called for clearly defining climate finance as new, additional, and sustained resources with a transparent mechanism to meet the needs of developing and vulnerable countries.
