Ayesha Saba

The establishment of the proposed fund to compensate countries badly affected by climate change will help Pakistan secure long-term technical assistance from global community to minimise losses during natural disasters. The decision to set up a special fund for compensating countries impacted by climate change was made at the recently held 27^th session of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Egypt.

The establishment of the special fund will prove quite beneficial for the world, particularly for developing countries like Pakistan. Arif Goheer, the Principal Scientific Officer at the Global Change Impact Studies Centre (GCISC) of the Ministry of Climate Change, told WealthPK that the representatives of Pakistan discussed the threats posed by climate change at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit besides informing the participants about the situation in the country, which was badly devastated by the recent floods.

“Pakistan effectually presented the case of its vulnerability to the vagaries of climate change and highlighted the steps being taken by the government to combat climate change to save people from disasters and continue with the sustainable development pathways by following the climate change mitigation aspiration of the global community,” he said.Arif Goheer said that Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman told the summit that vulnerability should not be a death sentence.

He said that Pakistan pleaded the case about losses and damage suffered by developing and less developed countries due to climate change at the summit. He said that the representatives of Pakistan, through arduous efforts and consistent pushing, remained successful in improvising the COP presidency and UNFCCC to establish the loss and damage fund. He termed it a great success of Pakistan.

“In order to build resilience to future natural disasters, Pakistan must focus on longer-term technical assistance and build its capacity. International partners and possible donors will be looking for indications that Pakistan is ready to commit to this sort of forward-thinking strategy for tackling its climate change challenges in the coming years,” he said. Arif Goheer said that in 1992, countries (parties) agreed on a framework to combat climate change and take effective steps to minimise its negative impacts.

It is called the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “The Convention calls for a Conference of Parties (COP), which is the supreme governing body, each year. The 27^th session of the COP was held in Sharm El Sheikh. It included the 27^th session of the Conference of Parties (COP 27) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the 17th session of the Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (CMP 17), and the fourth session of the Conference of Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA 4),” he added.

Arif Goheer said that the 57^th sessions of the subsidiary bodies, including the Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) and the Subsidiary Body for Implementation (SBI), were also held during COP 27. Around 35,000 delegates from all over the world participated in negotiations and various events were held at the margins of the COP. This particular COP, especially after the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6), which stressed the need for immediate action, was considered an “Implementation COP.”

More than 3.5 million people were displaced and forced to live under the open sky due to the recent devastating floods in Pakistan. Many of the flood-affected people are still living outside their houses. “The damage caused by the floods has been estimated at $35 billion, and Pakistan, as a developing country, cannot deal with this problem on its own,” he told WealthPK.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk