SHARM EL-SHEIKH: Climate Minister Senator Sherry Rehman on Friday said the United Nations’ ongoing climate change conference (COP27) must help unlock private and public financing for adaptation and mitigation, which would need $125 trillion to reach net-zero by 2050.

Speaking at a side event, ‘Gea­r­ing Towards Carbon Neutrality in the Asia-Pacific region’, Ms Rehman said: “This is no longer about saving our future; it is a battle to save our present. It is also about saving the land we stand on, and what we expect to build and grow on.”

She said COP27 should enable mechanisms that review mitigation, alongside how regions would cope with the onset of accelerated climate stress, leading to constant climate emergencies. “We need a coalition of the willing to unlock climate finance for governments, countries and entire regions to manage predictability of the future, build resilience capacity, and mitigation for a future that survives the coming climate tsunami.”

Speaking at a panel discussion titled, ‘The Broken Bargain between the North and the South’, at the Pakistan Pavilion, Ms Rehman said Pakistan’s diplomatic position was not adversarial with any bloc, rather it sought navigating an equitable burden share as a bargain between the Global North and South.

“The UN secretary general is advancing the cause of climate justice along with the UNFCCC, and it is time for developed countries to also acknowledge this call,” she added.

Speaking on the occasion, the participants agreed that the bargain between the Global North and South needed a reset, and the COP27 system offered that opportunity on diplomatic and international civil society levels. The official negotiations between countries have started, and Pakistan has been successful in tabling the contested idea of Loss and Damage on the agenda.

Sherry Rehman also met Executive Director of the Interna­tio­nal Trade Centre Pamela Coke Ham­i­lton and informed her that Pakistan was working on a scale of options in terms of interventions, mainly the Living Indus Initiative.

Ms Hamilton said that traditional practices needed to evolve with technology to cope up with the changing cli­­­matic conditions and said that ITC would like to work further with Pakis­tan in bringing innovative interventions.

Ms Rehman also met Colombian Minister of Environment and Sustainable Develop­ment Susana Muhamad and Founder and CEO of Acumen Jacqueline Novogratz.

The Pakistan Pavilion will be holding panel discussions every day till Nov 17 on several topics that will inform participants at COP27 about Pakistan’s ongoing efforts to combat climate change stress.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2022