No doubt it is because of the current monsoon floods, by no means over, that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik to prepare a 300-day climate mitigation plan. It seems more because of optics, because Mr Sharif and Senator Malik would both know that all Pakistan can do on its own is alleviate slightly the suffering of those directly affected. At the moment, the fate of the affectees is pressing; there are now millions, and the losses are colossal. What is perhaps the driving force behind the PM’s decision is that this is not going to be a one-off. This was not the worst monsoon in recent years, devastating as it was.
However, while there can be no mitigation of the floods themselves, preparations can be made for the reception of affectees in camps, with adequate stocks of food, and then their rehabilitation, which will require a needs assessment first. Apart from individual losses which might have to be made up, there will be collective losses to be listed, such as roads and bridges, and irrigation works, including embankments which might have been breached. Senator Malik said that the plan would take about a month to prepare. That means implementation should start in mid-October, when the monsoon would be nearly over. He also said that the country had to act within its own resources. This brings up the crucial issue of climate justice. If the climate has been damaged by the developed world, why should the Pakistani state have to dig within its own pockets to pay for the damage?
The problem is, the developed nations regard this as merely a further opportunity to plunge the Third World into a debt trap. Climate finance for mitigation and resilience is woefully inadequate, and what is available is in the form of loans. The IMF has lent Pakistan $1 billion from its Climate Resilience Support Fund, which stands liable to be stopped if Pakistan fails the upcoming review of its package. Pakistan may fail this review because of revenue and growth slippages caused by the floods. It is also no help to Pakistan that the two powers it is cultivating, the USA and China, are the world’s largest emitters of the greenhouse gases responsible for climate change. Another problem is India, not just because it wants to arrogate the right to pollute in the name, but because its behaviour this monsoon showed it wanted to use water to harm Pakistan.
