Climate injustice
The writer is a Professor and Director of Pakistan Study Centre, University of Sindh, Jamshoro. He can be reached at shuja.mahesar@usindh.edu.pk
World’s fast-growing economies are mainly responsible for higher increase in carbon emissions — a prime driver of world’s metrological chaos. Leading industrial elite countries have contributed to rise in global warming resulting in rise in sea waters, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, deforestation, water crisis, food insecurity and extreme weather events causing devastating ecological crisis. The environmental collapse is affecting people regardless of their colour, caste and creed. It has devastating effects on poor and marginalised communities. In 2009, developed nations made a pledge of $100 billion a year to finance the initiatives taken by less developing countries for managing human-induced climate change. These 38 rich countries reaffirmed their commitment at a UN summit through Paris Agreement in 2015 to help poor countries build their capacity to deal with worst ravages of climate breakdown.
The aim of funding was to finance the projects in developing countries focused on the reduction in emissions, limiting global temperatures, taking steps for environmental improvement, investing in renewable sources of energy and cleaner technology, and empowering local communities to develop climate resilience through adaptive and transformative skills. However, funding did not cover the losses already faced by developing countries due to climate events. For instance, the recent floods in Pakistan have not received much attention from wealthy nations and losses have not yet been mitigated by use of climate finance. People in the flood-hit areas have been deprived of their economic, social, cultural and constitutional rights to live a normal life. Nevertheless, recent judicial decisions in Pakistan have further strengthened the climate action to protect eco-system, ground water, forest land and environment for securing the right of people to life guaranteed under Article 9 of the Constitution of Pakistan. This legal development indicates country’s commitment to climate goals, and it will significantly increase global understanding about irrevocable damages caused by climate crisis in Pakistan.
However, the climate goals are becoming difficult to achieve and climate challenge is proving irresistible, mainly because transparent system of spending climate money purely on climate-based projects is missing. Untraceable use of finance has exposed the environmental stewardess of these rich countries. Nevertheless, the criteria of selection of projects have not been carefully done in the absence of uniform mechanism. Thus, some key projects related to climate were not funded and the others were financed even though they were not aimed at achieving climate goals. According to UN reports, most of the selected projects had no significant link to climate improvement.
Thus, these climate events have further exacerbated worldwide because of the failure of wealthy nations to combat global warming causing melting of ice around the Poles. Carbon dioxide and methane released from permafrost in Arctic regions due to melting has also begun to produce atmospheric warming. Since the 1980s, each decade has been warmer than the previous one. Nevertheless, the present decade has remained hottest in the history of mankind due to earth’s fast warming causing dangerous effects in some regions where frequent heatwaves triggering wildfire have converted forests into charred landscape. The recent torrential rains in Pakistan submerged Sindh and Balochistan. Nevertheless, the damages caused by floods including migration and displacement can be dealt with by launching rehabilitation projects financed under climate fund. Projects aimed at promoting carbon-sink afforestation, coastal development and protection of Indus delta’s disruptive eco-system, stopping sea intrusions, preserving groundwater, developing alternative energy sources and supporting farmers to adopt sustainable approach of climate-smart agriculture (CSA) can also be sponsored under global climate initiatives. Economic activities disrupted by disasters merit climate funding and thus this region should not be deprived of its share in global fund for climate improvement. Pakistan’s case makes sense of climate injustice because it emits less than 1% of greenhouse gases, but it faces huge scale of devastation.
Pakistan’s economic diplomacy team should take up the country’s case of reparation for flood victims. Earlier this year conference focused on post-floods reconstruction held in Geneva on 10th January has created some breathing space for our economy. Over 9 billion dollars pledge was made to support Pakistan in long-term rehabilitation process related to flood-affected people. The pledged money was to be used in long-term climate-adaptive projects to strengthen the local communities. Ironically, there is no system of monitoring progress and preventing funding leakages.
The rich countries must realise the importance of dealing with climate change of immense magnitude and avoid doing injustice to some regions which deserve much attention. These countries should come up with collective wisdom and grace to form holistic policy framework for supporting only climate related projects and evolve international mechanism to use climate funds in equitable and inclusive manner. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) argues that tackling massive climate change is a hard, complex and enduring challenge for generations. However, the world community can be successful if all nations join UN’s campaign ‘Race to Resilience’ and combat the global warming in present times because the earth is going to heat up by almost 3°C by the end of this century, causing melting of ice caps, destruction of coral reefs and disruption of the planet’s water cycle. Thus, the international community needs to engage academic and scientific community to spell out the facts of disheartening climate reality along with prospects of working together in a concerted manner. The world community needs to understand its moral obligation to uphold the principles of global climate justice, implement UN framework convention on climate change (UNFCCC) and invest in human resources to genuinely build capacity of people in most vulnerable regions that have done least to cause this problem.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 26th, 2023.
Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.