Calls to ‘level up’ climate governance in Pakistan

Experts identify technical capacity, coordination as main obstacles

ISLAMABAD:

Experts and thought leaders reiterated calls for Pakistan to ‘level up’ its climate and development governance to meet the challenges of the 21st century while speaking at Jinnah Institute, according to a press release issued Friday.

The discussion was done using the Centigrade Platform, set up recently to ‘amplify policy discourse, knowledge-based collaborations and resilience advocacy’ in Pakistan’s climate and environment space.

While climate finance was the focus, speakers addressed multiple roadblocks and ideas at the multilateral and national level in accessing finance for both resilience and mitigation goals.

Speakers identified technical capacity and coordination obstacles as two of the fundamental deficits in moving forward with leveraging opportunities in the face of a serious triple planetary crisis, in which Pakistan had now emerged as the poster-child for climate disruptions.

UN Resident Coordinator Julien Harneis suggested that there was a need to tally Pakistan’s receipt of climate funds against other vulnerable countries.

Samuel Rizk, the resident representative of UNDP Pakistan, stated that climate finance opportunities for Pakistan were limited, and a finance and investment combination was more likely to be the solution.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 9^th, 2023.