KARACHI, Pakistan
At a time when developing and developed countries across the globe are investing heavily in adaptation to and countering climate change, Pakistan has not only dissolved its climate change ministry but also slashed its development budget by more than 60 percent.
The government allocated a total of 58.8 million Pakistani rupees (US $590,000) to combat climate change in the Public Sector Development Program for 2013-14 as compared to 168.1 million rupees ($1.6 million) allocated to the climate change ministry in 2012-13. The ministry has now been transformed into a division.
Environmentalists and officials say the move might have serious repercussions on different fields in the country including agriculture, water and forestation besides losing representation at international forums. International donors and organizations working on climate change are also unlikely to support Pakistan in dealing with the relatively recent, but highly dangerous threat.
Dr. Qamaruz Zaman Chaudhry, a lead author of the National Climate Change Policy and an expert on climate change, says Pakistan may face isolation in the international community if it doesn't take effective measures to cope with changing weather patterns.
“We need to link all our development activities like dams, roads, canals and bridges with climate change,” he observes. “Otherwise all the development may go waste.”
At the moment, Pakistan receives around $3 million for a climate adaptation fund and $3.5 million in Glacier Lake Outburst Funding through international aid.
“This aid is peanuts,” Chaudhry says.
To cope with climate change, developed countries have established a Green Climate Fund, for which the plan is to raise $200 billion per annum by 2020.
Unfortunately, Pakistan has no share in this, mainly because of its inefficiency in dealing with the environmental challenge. According to the 2006 Pakistan Strategic Country Environmental Assessment Report, the annual cost of environmental degradation in Pakistan has been estimated at 365 billion rupees ($4.2 billion).
Inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene account for 112 billion rupees ($1.3 billion), agriculture soil degradation for 70 billion rupees ($807 million) and range land degradation and deforestation 6 billion rupees ($69 million).
Environmental experts believe the annual cost of environmental degradation has now reached around 450 billion rupees ($5.2 billion) in financial losses.
According to the National Economy and Environment Development Study 2011, Pakistan needs around $6 billion to $14 billion for climate change adaptation measures while mitigation efforts will cost around $7 billion to $18 billion from now to 2050.
For this, the country needs to develop climate change-related projects to get its monetary share from the Green Climate Fund, since it cannot cope with these challenges from its own resources.
Muhammad Khalid Siddiq, a joint secretary at the climate change division, told Dawn.com that the planning commission initially approved their new projects for the next fiscal year but later dropped them without explanation. The agreed-upon projects with the commission were related to water sanitation, solid waste management and curbing rapid deforestation in the country.
“We will take up the issue of new projects with the government and seek funding for them,” he says, adding the dissolution of the ministry has also not sent a good signal to the international community.
“Numerous international donors and organizations working on climate change have conveyed their annoyance over the decision and we hope the government will revive the ministry for effective adaptation and mitigation measures on climate change.”
Siddiq says the economic meltdown might have forced the government to dissolve the ministry and slash funding — but “they should have exempted the climate change ministry because of its importance on the global level.”
Aamir Saeed is a columnist for the Asia News Network in Hamburg, Germany.
