ISLAMABAD: Coordinator to the Prime Minister on Climate Change and Environmental Coordination Romina Khurshid Alam said on Friday that climate change caused various disasters that continued to decimate the country.

The most damage is done by floods and heatwaves which are now a major cause of massive socio-economic damages in Pakistan.

Chairing a meeting on ‘Strengthening Pakistan’s Shield Against Climate Change Impacts’, Romina Khurshid Alam said despite poor economic conditions, the country remained committed to overcoming environmental and climate risks through all available financial resources.

“Climate change significantly impacts Pakistan, affecting various aspects of life and the environment and these negative fallouts have left no option for us but to focus on building climate adaptation and improving disaster preparedness to protect lives and livelihoods of our people and environment,” the prime minister’s climate coordinator said.

Ms Alam cautioned that without exploring available funding opportunities in collaboration with international organisations like the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank (WB), Pakistan would not be able to overcome exacerbating climate impacts such as increasing floods, heatwaves, increasing water scarcity, droughts, crop failures, declining crop productivity, biodiversity loss, sea-level rise, sea intrusion and health diseases.

She said: “We are coordinating with national and international organisations such as Global Shield to help Pakistan avail existing funding resources for building the country’s socio-economic resilience through climate risk mitigation policy initiatives.”

At the meeting, Regional Director South Asia at the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF) and Vulnerable Twenty Group (V20) Hamza Ali Haroon said the V20 together with the Group of Seven (G7) and other supporting countries launched the ‘Global Shield’ to facilitate better pre-arranged protection against climate and disaster related risks for vulnerable people in the highly climate risk-prone countries.

The CVF is a South-South cooperation platform and a voluntary, non-treaty organisation for vulnerable developing countries specifically focused on climate change action and policy changes. It represents around 1.74 billion people worldwide and is made up of 68 climate vulnerable members nations from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East, and the Pacific according to Mr Haroon.

A statement issued by the ministry said that during the meeting, representatives from UNDP-Pakistan were also present and discussed at length matters related to the climate risk mitigation, climate finance for adaptation and mitigation measures, agriculture insurance and urban flood resilience.

Deputy Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pakistan Van Nguyen briefed the climate aide about Global Shield and how Pakistan could avail pre-arranged funding for improving disaster risk management aimed to close protection gaps in climate-vulnerable countries. The country can also utilize technical capacity-building facilities to build up the country’s resilience against the various climate risks, particularly disasters.

Ms Nguyen said the Global Shield is a better pre-arranged and immediately available fund in response to disasters. It is the most efficient, effective and fastest way for the economy and communities to seek funds in the most climate-vulnerable countries.

Appreciating members of UNDP-Pakistan, Global Shield and CVF for their interest in building Pakistan’s climate resilience through funding and technical capacity, Ms Alam said that she would extend her government’s support and engage with them to build the resilience of the people and economy of the country.

“Building disaster resilience of socio-economic sectors, particularly agriculture, water, energy, health and education is top priority of the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led government and my ministry will engage with every single development sector partner to make Pakistan disaster-resilience at any cost,” she said.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2024