Valerie Hickey, the World Bank’s global director for climate change, highlighted the urgent need for adequate climate financing.
Speaking at the “Breathe Pakistan” conference in Islamabad, Hickey emphasized that waiting for sufficient funding from the Global North could lead to “too many” deaths due to climate-related disasters.
“Why don’t we just talk about the weather?” she said, noting that how climate challenges are discussed with experts in public and private sectors was very different from how they are talked about with farming family.
“Too often in the climate change community, we say the same thing to both the audiences and neither audience understands what we are talking about. So communication is really the original sin of the climate community,” she added.
Despite contributing less than 1% of global emissions, Pakistan is among the countries most affected by climate change. The nation has faced devastating floods, droughts, and heatwaves.
Former State Bank of Pakistan Governor Shamshad Akhtar stated that Pakistan requires $40 billion to $50 billion annually until 2050 to address its climate challenges.
Most pledged funds after the 2022 floods have not been disbursed yet; only $2.8 billion out of $10 billion was received by June 2024. The shift from a goal of $100 billion in annual climate finance to potentially higher figures like $300 billion is crucial but largely consists of lending rather than grants.
Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb emphasized that adaptation is a bigger issue than mitigation for countries like Pakistan facing immediate threats from rising temperatures and extreme weather events.
The “Breathe Pakistan” conference seeks solutions to make Pakistan more resilient by 2047 and foster regional cooperation across South Asia..
Encouraging regional collaboration across South Asia can help share strategies and resources more effectively against common challenges such as glacial melting and water scarcity.