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The monsoon season is now considered a deadly nightmare in Pakistan. In August, BDMA (Balochistan Disaster Management Authority) alerted 17 districts, including Nasirabad, Kohlu, Hernai, and Dera Bugti, where hundreds of people became homeless. If we’re to get to the bottom of this, we have to understand the importance of climate governance and climate finance, which can further help us reduce the consequences of climate change.
The monsoon season is now considered a deadly nightmare in Pakistan.
According to the Pakistan Economic Survey 2023-24, Pakistan ranks 7 out of the 20 most hitten states in recent climate change, although we contribute 0.8 % in global carbon emission. Despite this fact, we have only received 1.4 to 2.0 billion dollars per year in the last ten years; many of these were donor-managed loans. Despite this, we pay the cost of 4 billion dollars for these outcomes of the industrialization of the West.
Where do we need to improve? What should be our next step? What could we do best to combat and reduce these harsh slaps of climate change? We direly need to bridge and iron out the issues related to climate governance so that Pakistan can get enough funds to run climate ministries and also to channel investments into climate resilience initiatives.
Climate governance refers to collective and communal measures taken by government and civil authorities to address the issues and alleviate the challenges. In 2017, Pakistan brought the Climate Change Act into the constitution under the leadership of former PM Nawaz Sharif, which constitutes the Pakistan Climate Change Council headed by the Prime Minister along with all four chief ministers, experts on the environment in charge of climate change, finance, food, and agricultural ministries.
Pakistan ranks 7 out of the 20 most hit states in recent climate change, despite contributing only 0.8% of global carbon emissions.
Although Pakistan has unique climate diplomacy at the international level, presided over G77 in 1992 and UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) in 2022, the failure to use such a leadership role on the national level due to the lack of integrity at the climate governance framework impeded the effectiveness of the Pakistan climate finance regime.
Climate finance piled up for financing local, national, and transnational organizations to mitigate the issues related to climate change. In the 2024-25 fiscal budget, the federal government allocated 7.7% to the ROCG ( Running of Civil government) and 15.3 to PSDP (Public sector development program) to climate-sensitive areas.
Primarily, owing to the poor climate governance framework, international funders like the Green Climate Fund feel reluctant to corruption and other issues. Recently, their active project worth is 257 million rupees which needs to be more for mitigational policies. Pakistan must step up its game on both fronts – climate governance and finance.
Issues with the climate governance mechanism are – integrity, analogous to incomplete implementation of policies, arbitrary decision-making without political commitment, and lack of public participation. These are the focal points where the government should work to bring integrity to enhance measures to combat climate change.
International funders like the Green Climate Fund feel reluctant due to corruption and other issues.
The current Pakistan climate financing structure has yet to be formulated by a single policy but by many amendments within the government’s public finance system (PFC). Consequently, Pakistan needs to get the required funds, which hampers the government’s ability to secure financial resources for mitigation and adaptation policies. In this way, funding institutions and donors are put off and lean towards structured and transparent mechanisms to make sure financial resources are put to good use.
As an intend to make Pakistan a climate resilience country, a handful of considerations should be taken into account: We have to reform the existing climate governance framework, and we have to update the preceding structures of climatic organizing bodies. We must empower and operationalize institutes that Climate Change Act heads because these all are primary drivers of integrating climate into governance. Proper reporting of climate expenditure should be established to encourage comparability which further creates a learning feedback loop.
Pakistan needs to reform its existing climate governance framework to secure necessary funding for mitigation and adaptation policies.
To add up, the government should establish higher benchmarks and take standard reviews to guide transformations into existing climate change frameworks. Aligning to that standard checklist for project designing and approval, climate impact assignments, and legally mandated green reporting budget.
The government must work on the capacity building of the institutions e.g., critical auditing and reporting, as well as corruption watchdogs. Up to this stage, the public account committee (reviewing the climate change report) should completely understand climate change and governance.
The author is pursuing a BS in International Relations from the National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad. He wrote on the Climate Change in Eurasia Review and has done research on climate change during his internship at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute.
