ISLAMABAD: A group of experts on Sunday said urgent funds were needed to tackle the crisis of climate change in Asia, especially Pakistan to enhance expenditure on vital public services such as health, education, and social protection.
It said that climate disasters forced to invest in reconstruction and rebuilding and developing countries including Pakistan are cutting expenditures on public services and social protection and resulting in more people being pushed back into poverty.
Chairing a seminar on the “Impact of Climate Disaster on Economy”, Shahzad Ali Malik said that already more than 50 percent of Asia’s population lives below the $5.50 per day poverty line said a press release.
He said between 2013 and 2020 only about $113 billion in public climate finance from international providers was committed to these countries, equating to an average of just over $14 billion per year.
He said what is worse is that more than half of this amount is being provided in the form of loans that must be repaid to some degree.
Only one-third of the total available funding is for adaptation which is needed to tackle climate impact he added.
He said most often, people from marginalised and lower-income backgrounds experience the worst effects of the climate crisis and are the least prepared to deal with the consequences.
But those people who have been suffering have done the least to cause this crisis, he said, adding the international financial support to build climate resilience and green societies are negligible and it’s clear developing countries in Asia are not able to adapt to current and future climate stressors alone.
Malik said in the absence of adequate financial support, developing countries are reverting to taking on debt to deal with climate impacts and risk falling into debt distress.
He said governments and the providers of climate finance must urgently ensure that scaled-up and grant-based adaption finance reaches vulnerable communities at the local level to respond to their actual needs.
They should also clearly underline the pathways to meet their commitments including the doubling of adaption finance.
He said Pakistan has experienced one the hottest springs in recorded history with temperatures topping out at 50C in some places impacting hundreds of millions of people.
Another speaker Shiasta Mobeen from Kohsar University Murree said the UN in its latest report warned that many of the climate impacts are already becoming irreversible and there will be also greater and greater limits to what people can do to tackle the effects.
She said climate change has become an undeniable reality and it’s not just oblivious in the poles where ice caps are melting at an unprecedented pace, nor is it an issue of the future.
