Climate story: success abroad, struggle at home

ISLAMABAD:

Pakistan's climate story can be narrated and understood at two levels: international and domestic. Internationally, Pakistan played a marvellous role in steering the debate in the right direction. It also played a prominent role in devising the Kyoto Protocol while chairing the G-77-plus-China group.

Again, in Bali, Pakistan was engaged in deep diplomacy and positively contributed to defining the Bali Action Plan. The story does not end here. Our diplomats also helped design the Adaptation and Green Funds. The most recent contribution was the country's role in finalising the Loss and Damage Fund. Unfortunately, this determination and focus on climate change could not be translated into domestic policies and actions. The most disturbing part of the story is that sometimes, domestic actions nullify the international contribution of our negotiators and diplomats.

The most prominent example is the Adaptation Fund and the establishment of a national implementing entity. Pakistan was among ones that advocated for the enhanced role of national institutions in accessing the Adaptation Fund. Unfortunately, Pakistan got access to the Adaptation Fund through UN agencies. There were many organisations or departments that could qualify for the status of national implementation entity, but we preferred UN agencies.

The story of implementing the climate change policy is even more disturbing. It is common knowledge that Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change and has been among the top 10 most vulnerable countries for many years.

Since the early 1990s, droughts and floods have badly impacted the country. Predictions show it will face multifaceted challenges due to climate change, impacting agriculture, water security, health, food security, and causing sea intrusion, heat waves, and other related issues. Despite such a high vulnerability, Pakistan could not devise a proper policy and implementation framework in accordance with the needs. Instead, it opted for a haphazard approach. The government formulated policies and action plans that were the least relevant to the ground realities.

Moreover, the analysis of policies seems to be an attempt to make donors and the international audience happy. This approach has created many problems. For instance, Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change, but it prefers mitigation over adaptation. Ground realities indicate we must prioritise adaptation to minimise the impact of climate change on vital areas such as agriculture, water, health, etc.

Climate change has posed serious challenges to the agriculture sector and water security and now it has become a matter of survival. Literature suggests agricultural productivity can fall by 8-10% by 2040.

On the other hand, water availability and its quality are other major issues. Thus, adaptation should be the priority.

Unfortunately, Pakistan prefers fancy slogans of mitigation and has introduced interventions that badly impacted the economy and society.

A few years ago, activists influenced a drive to switch the transport system to compressed natural gas (CNG). We celebrated it as a landmark initiative and the start of transition towards green transportation. However, the policy was adopted without analysing its implications. This impacted the country on many fronts. First, the natural gas reserves started depleting at an alarming pace. With the passage of time, gas load-shedding became a new normal.

Now, the government is unable to provide gas connections to residential consumers. The situation is so bad that even households in the elite areas in Islamabad do not have gas connections, let alone small cities and far-off areas.

Second, Pakistan had to start importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) to bridge the gap between demand and supply, which is eating into the foreign currency reserves. Third, household gas prices began to rise, triggering questions of affordability. Fourth, the business community faced the worst consequences as they built hundreds of CNG filling stations across the country. They also spent billions of rupees on establishing CNG kit and cylinder manufacturing units to support the booming CNG transportation sector. Now, they are in a fix and do not know what to do with their investment.

Fifth, Pakistan had to spend billions of dollars on importing equipment, kits, and cylinders. Sixth, people spent money on converting their vehicles into CNG in the hope that it would save money. It did help save money in the beginning, but with the depletion of gas reserves, the process was reversed.

Instead of learning from the mistakes, Pakistan introduced the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) study, which is again mitigation-driven. Now, a new wave of green energy transition has been launched without proper homework.

For instance, donors and think tanks promoted solar energy, and Pakistan blindly followed it without thinking about agreements with the IPPs. Now, the government is facing the problem of payments to the IPPs, as due to solar installation, the revenue has decreased.

The government has no choice but to increase electricity prices to fill the gap. It is in a fix; whether to discourage solar installation or increase power tariffs. Moreover, the IMF mission is asking the government to rethink its solar policy.

Pakistan could easily avoid this situation by devising a better policy to follow the green transition agenda. It can invest in hydroelectric power, which will help to produce cheap electricity, secure water availability, give a fresh impetus to agriculture, and enhance food security. Let's try to understand the impact through a practical example. The construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam will increase the water storage capacity by 6.4 million acre feet (MAF) as currently the country's total storage capacity is around 11 MAF.

It will generate 4,500 megawatts of cheap electricity, create 16,000 jobs, and irrigate 1.2 million acres of land. It will also help enhance food security and supply quality inputs, like cotton, to industries. From the above discussion, we can deduce two conclusions. First, the diplomats and negotiators are playing a formidable role at the international level. Second, the domestic performance is not satisfactory at all.

Therefore, there is a need to change the approach, policy, and implementation frameworks and make them more country-specific and ground reality-based. Pakistan needs to shift its focus from mitigation to adaptation and refine its policies and implementation plans accordingly. It must devise and pursue a well-researched policy and an implementation framework according to the ground realities.

The policy must recognise the weaknesses, like the financial crunch, per capita energy availability, bad policy choices, and the strengths, like the potential of hydropower, coal, nuclear energy, etc. The government must stop looking towards donors, and indigenous wisdom should be tapped for devising policies and implementation plans.

Unfortunately, Pakistan does not greatly value indigenous wisdom. For example, the Council on Climate Change is dominated by donor-supported experts, and it is difficult to find local experts or university representatives. Thus, university graduates and experts from local institutions must be part of the council.

The writer is a political economist and a visiting research fellow at Hebei University, China