UN proposes debt relief to Pakistan amid flood recovery

SHARM EL-SHEIKH:

 

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that addressing the issue of climate-induced “loss and damage” to the affected developing countries would be a key “deliverable” at the COP27 summit, that got under way in Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.

Nearly 100 heads of state and government convened in the Red Sea resort for two days of talks aimed at deepening emissions cuts and financially backing developing countries. At the request of Pakistan, the COP27 has agreed by consensus to the inclusion of an agenda item on “loss and damage finance”.

Talking to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who visited the Pakistan Pavilion at the summit, and a joint press stake-out, Shehbaz said that Pakistan required substantial international support for flood rehabilitation.

According to the Post Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA), the prime minister said, the total estimated damage caused by the recent floods in Pakistan was over $32 billion – around 10% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

“The enormous task of rehabilitation and reconstruction will require substantial international support for Pakistan to build back greener, based on the model of sustainable development,” he added.

Shehbaz emphasised that the COP27, was a timely opportunity for the international community to “catalyse concerted international action to mitigate the impact of climate change, and promote climate justice”.

Appreciating Guterres for his solidarity with Pakistan in the wake of devastating floods in the country, he endorsed the secretary-general’s call for climate justice and climate solidarity.

The prime minister also appreciated the creation of a UN inter-agency team, led by the deputy secretary general, to help Pakistan prepare a comprehensive rehabilitation and reconstruction plan to be presented to the conference.

Addressing a joint press conference, Guterres appealed to the international financial institutions and G-20 countries to provide debt relief to Pakistan to help its post-flood reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

He said that Pakistan was a middle income country but it had not been given the kind of debt relief and concessional funding it needed to tackle the adverse impact of climate change.

The secretary-general proposed to the international financial institutions and the G 20 countries to create a mechanism for debt relief for middle income countries, including Pakistan.

He underlined the need for defining a clear road map to deal with the disaster, by creating an institutional framework of financing. He announced that an international donor conference would be held for Pakistan.

Shehbaz said the impact on the GDP will be 2.2% just from the flooding, but extreme climate events such as heatwaves, forest fires, and rapidly melting glaciers had already created a 9.1% drag on Pakistan’s GDP annually.

“Over 9 million of our people being pushed into a life of extreme poverty, with an additional 1.9 million families being pushed into multidimensional poverty,” the prime minister told the international media.

“Our journey to recovery will be held back by increasing public debt, rising international energy prices and no real access to Adaptation Funds,” he added. “We have mobilised every available resource towards the national relief.”

Meanwhile, Guterres warned the world leaders that humanity faced a stark choice between working together or “collective suicide” in the battle against global warming. “Humanity has a choice: cooperate or perish,” he told the summit, adding that climate change could not be put on the “back burner”.

He urged the richer polluting nations to come to the aid of poorer countries least responsible for the emission of heat-trapping gases. “It is either a Climate Solidarity Pact or a Collective Suicide Pact,” he said, adding that it was a “moral imperative” for richer polluters to help vulnerable countries.

Also at the summit, Pakistan joined more than two-dozen countries in launching a new group that would ensure accountability of each other for a pledge to end deforestation by 2030. More than 25 countries launched the ‘Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership’ – which included Pakistan, Japan, the Republic of Congo, the United Kingdom and others – and announced billions of dollars to finance their efforts.

The first meeting of the group, chaired by Ghana and the United States, took place a year after more than 140 leaders promised at COP26 in Britain to end deforestation by the end of the decade. Progress since has been patchy, with only a few countries instituting more aggressive policies on deforestation and financing.

The new group accounts for roughly 35% of the world’s forests and aims to meet twice a year to track progress. “This partnership is a critical next step to collectively deliver on this promise and help keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C alive,” Britain’s Alok Sharma, who chaired last year’s COP talks, said.

Sharma added in a statement that around 22% of the $12 billion in public money pledged for forests by 2025, funds committed in Glasgow, had so far been disbursed. Among the new sources of financing, Germany said it would double its financing for forests to €2 billion through 2025.

Private companies also announced $3.6 billion in extra money. Other initiatives towards meeting the 2030 forest pledge also announced incremental progress at the opening of COP27. A coalition of 25 governments and charities said that 19% of $1.7 billion to promote land rights and forest protection had been paid out.

The COP27 convened as nations worldwide were coping with increasingly intense natural disasters that had taken thousands of lives this year alone and cost billions of dollars—from devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria to droughts in the United States and Africa and unprecedented heatwaves across three continents.

“We have seen one catastrophe after another,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. “As soon as we tackle one catastrophe another one arises—wave after wave of suffering and loss,” he added. “Is it not high time to put an end to all this suffering?”

French President Emmanuel Macron urged the United States, China and other non-European rich nations to “step up” their efforts to cut emissions and provide financial aid to other countries. “Europeans are… the only ones paying,” Macron told French and African climate campaigners on the sidelines of the summit.

The COP27 is scheduled to continue until November 18 with ministerial joining the fray during Week Two. Security was tight at the meeting, with Human Rights Watch saying authorities had arrested dozens of people and restricted the right to demonstrate in the days leading up to COP27.