World owes Pakistan $30b a year for polluting

Country saves over 700m tons of carbon emissions by polluting 4x less than global average

ISLAMABAD:

The monsoon season of 2022 brought forth the most devastating floods to Pakistan. Two of the country’s provinces received 8x more rain than their 30-year average, resulting in widespread destruction and loss of life.

A study conducted by World Weather Attribution has found that human-caused climate change significantly increased the intensity of the monsoon rainfall that Sindh and Balochistan experienced this year.

It found that the rain during the region’s five most extreme days was 75% more intense than it would have been without the 1.2-degree Celsius increase in global temperatures.

The inescapable nature of climate change makes such destruction inevitable. The losses from such events are always quantified in terms of lost crops, infrastructure, and human lives and any expectation by the global community to foot the bill is met by inadequate remuneration in the name of aid, charity, or loans with no accountability.

Pakistan has received less than $1 billion in charity for the last flood, peanuts when compared to the damage the country has suffered. This pattern of asking for aid after natural disasters has been the norm for Pakistan, as if the country is solely responsible for the effects of climate change and not a victim of.

Pollution, for centuries, has been the passive cost of global economic development. Since the industrial revolution, economies have relied heavily on fossil fuels to power their growth. The largest economies China, the United States, and India contribute the most to pollution, emitting more than the rest of the world combined.

As the global economy has grown, so has the impact on the environment. However, much like economic prosperity, the distribution of pollution and its effects has not been equal, with some countries bearing a disproportionate burden.

Pakistan sits at the top of the list of countries most severely affected by the consequences of climate change, despite contributing very little to the pollution that drives it.

With a population of nearly quarter of a billion people, Pakistan’s annual carbon emissions are only 217 metric tons, or roughly 1 metric ton per person. In comparison, the worst polluting countries emit more than 20 metric tons per capita, while the global average is 4.5 metric tons per person – four times the average Pakistani.

Despite making up 3% of the global population, Pakistan contributes only 0.6% to overall emissions; yet it bears the brunt of climate change impacts. This inequity merits compensation!

Carbon market can help measure damages done to Pakistan

The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 and the Paris Agreement of 2015 have set emissions goals for countries around the world. These accords have given rise to national emissions targets and the regulations to support them.

One solution to reducing emissions involves the use of carbon markets, which commoditise CO2 emissions by assigning them a price.

Carbon credits are issued by national or international and governmental organisations and act as a “permission slip” for an organisation to emit a certain additional amount of CO2 each year. The credits are, in turn, sold by those who pollute less than their permitted amount.

These programmes exist in several countries, including Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom, China, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, with many more considering implementations.

While this market-based principle is being primarily used by commercial organisations, we propose the extension of the same idea to be applied to countries as a solution to battle pollution inequity.

Pakistan, for example, under-pollutes by 737 million tons of carbon emissions than its permissible amount (by its share of global population) each year. The emissions savings created by Pakistan enable other countries to pollute more and benefit from the resulting development, while Pakistan bears the consequences of this pollution.

If we equate the 737 million tons of CO2 savings and use the lower end of the current price range of $40 per ton of CO2, Pakistan is entitled to receive $30 billion on an annual basis – a bill that should be footed by the net emitters of the world, a long list of extremely wealthy nations.

Pakistan allows world to generate $2tr annually

The $30 billion annual compensation to Pakistan for reducing its carbon emissions below its fair share may seem excessive, but it is in fact a small fraction of the benefits that these emissions reductions generate for the world.

Global CO2 emissions are around 36 billion tons per year, and the global economy generates $96 trillion in economic activity annually. Therefore, for every ton of pollution, an average of $2,666 worth of economic activity is generated.

Pakistan’s pollution reductions, which amount to 736 million tons per year, allow the world to create nearly $2 trillion in economic activity or wealth every year. In comparison, the $30 billion compensation for these emissions reductions is only 1.5% of the total monetary benefits that the world receives from Pakistan’s environmental conservation efforts.

Pakistan harbors the three longest mountain ranges in the world to its north: all three ranges tower over 7,000 metres at their peak and intersect above the country, marking the highest points on the planet.

Moreover, with over 7,200 known glaciers, there is more glacial ice in Pakistan than anywhere on Earth outside the polar regions. Glaciers have short response times and therefore react quickly to climate change.

While the impact of increase in global temperature on melting glaciers and the consequent increase in sea levels are well documented, nowhere in the world the risk to human life from climate change is higher than in Pakistan.

With over 250 million people residing to the south of these massive stores of ice, Pakistan is on the verge of becoming a massive human life catastrophe of man-made changes to climate.

Pakistan has long been projected to be among the most vulnerable countries to extreme weather by multiple global agencies, however, frequent natural disasters have made it a poster boy of the turbulence to come if the world does not change its ways about how it handles the environment.

While Pakistan is receiving the violent repercussions of climate change, its brittle economy, which depends mostly on agriculture, is in shambles. A country which used to earn forex exchange through exporting grain, cotton, fruits and cattle has now resorted to importing edibles or faces serious food insecurity.

Lack of financial support and economic abandonment by the rest of the world has made recovery impossible – millions of Pakistanis are paying directly for the disorder created by the entire world.

The writer is a founding member of an electric motorcycle company in Pakistan and CEO of an investment company based out of USA

 

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 16^th, 2023.

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