ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has hailed the adoption of its proposal by the 2022 UN Climate Change Conference, or COP27 summit, of a funding plan to help climate-affected countries cope with surging losses, Pakistani state media reported on Monday.
Climate negotiators agreed to start discussions on “Matters Relating to Funding Arrangements for Loss and Damage” at the opening session of the summit on Sunday, according to the state-run Radio Pakistan broadcaster.
The agreement to put funding to address “loss and damage” on the negotiating agenda came amid sustained pressure from Pakistan, which was hit by summer floods that covered a third of the country, and other vulnerable nations.
Islamabad had proposed the agenda item on behalf of the Group of 77 and China during inter-sessional work at Bonn, Germany in June.
“It envisages compensating developing nations for mounting damage linked to climate change,” the Radio Pakistan reported.
“The agenda item on ‘loss and damage’ was the only one out of eight additional items proposed by various groups, which was adopted by consensus. All the rest were dropped due to lack of consensus.”
Pakistan’s ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, said this was a recognition of the fact that countries like Pakistan, which confront climate-induced disasters, should not be left to fend for themselves.
Unprecedented floods, blamed on climate change, this year killed more than 1,700 people and affected 33 million in Pakistan, causing the South Asian country more than $30 billion in damages.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also arrived in Egypt on Sunday to attend the COP27 summit, Pakistan’s foreign office said, seeking “climate justice” for the South Asian nation.
The summit kicked off Sunday in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh after a year of extreme weather disasters that have fueled calls for wealthy industrialized nations to compensate poorer countries.
Sharif was last month invited to co-chair COP27 by Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah El-Sisi after he ran an international campaign to raise awareness about climate change in the wake of climate-induced floods that killed over 1,700 people, affected 33 million and cost his country more than $30 billion in damages.
Sharif called the summit in Egypt a “watershed in humanity’s fight against climate change & global warming.”
“Extreme climatic events in Pakistan & Horn of Africa this year have showcased globalization of climate change,” he said in a Twitter post before flying out of Islamabad.
“Turning a blind eye to its lethal effects will be criminal.”
As the COP27 climate summit opened in Egypt, UN climate chief Simon Stiell said concrete action to tackle emissions and climate risks, delayed over decades, could no longer wait as dangerous effects worsen.
“There is no one single crisis as critical, as impactful, as climate change,” he said.
“Wars will end, inflation, the cost of living, energy crises, these will come to an end. But what we are seeing... all around the world (is that) climate change is ever present and will get worse.”
Richer governments, whose large historic emissions have been the main driver of climate impacts, are expected to offer finance to back a “Global Shield” at COP27 that would boost insurance coverage and early warning systems for poor countries.
Some rich nations — including the United States, European Union countries and Australia — have so far resisted the creation of a loss and damage fund, fearing they could face trillions of dollars in liability for damages.
But between liability payments and simple government contributions to boost insurance and early warning systems lies fertile ground for other potential sources of loss and damage funding, said Harjeet Singh, head of global political strategy for Climate Action Network, an international coalition of green groups.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres, for instance, has called for nations around the world to impose a tax on the windfall profits of fossil-fuel energy firms, which have reported record quarterly profits as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred soaring oil and gas prices.
