International partners and possible donors will be looking for indications that Pakistan is ready to commit to forward-thinking strategy for tackling its climate change challenges in the years ahead
By Ghulam Haider
The international community has gathered in Egypt for the UN Climate Change Conference (COP27) to discuss a range of issues including loss and damage, climate finance, adaptation and mitigation. This year’s COP27 is being held in the aftermath of Pakistan’s disastrous summer floods, which led to the announcement that Pakistan’s Prime Minster Shahbaz Sharif will serve as vice-chair of the summit.
This — combined with Pakistan’s presidency of the G77 this year — have afforded Pakistan a significant place on the international stage to make its case for continued support toward post-flood recovery and reconstruction.
However, it remains to be seen how Pakistan will take advantage of this opportunity. Will Pakistani leaders be able to present a coherent and convincing case for further assistance from the international community in both the short- and long-term? Or will the fractured nature of the country’s domestic political landscape overshadow relief and recovery efforts?
While we won’t know the total impact of the 2022 floods for weeks or even months, the human cost is already stark. As of mid-October, 33 million people (one out of every seven Pakistanis) were affected by the floods, with 8 million estimated to have been displaced. The death toll directly caused by the floods was roughly 1,700, one-third of which were children.
And as Pakistan enters the recovery phase, the government estimates that over 9 million people could be pushed into poverty, with 19 of the 25 poorest districts in Pakistan deemed “calamity-affected.” Add in an estimated $30 billion in damages and economic losses, and the situation in Pakistan appears even more dire.
Pakistan also owes $1 billion in debt obligation payments by the end of the year. The additional economic strain presented by the floods has led to serious concerns that Pakistan will not be able to meet this payment.
No government officials have outright said that Pakistan will default on the debt, and some have offered reassurances the country would meet all its debt obligations. However, Planning Minster Ahsan Iqbal lamented how difficult it will be for Pakistan to meet the conditions imposed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), especially the bars on government spending, in light of the severe impact the floods have had on the country. Iqbal has stated he hopes that the IMF would revisit these conditions so that greater funds can be put towards relief and recovery efforts.
If the economic crisis wasn’t enough, tensions between the ruling PML-N/PPP government and the PTI opposition are at an all-time high. This political infighting has distracted from the medium- and long-term challenges for recovery and reconstruction, which includes an immediate public health crisis and longer-term food insecurity.
Many parts of the country are experiencing a severe public health crisis, with the World Health Organization noting that Pakistan has seen a sharp rise in malaria as well as diarrheal diseases, a dengue fever outbreak, measles and diphtheria.
Further, malnutrition will also rise due to food insecurity and inflation. The floods wiped out 80 percent of the country’s crops, and perishable food prices are now over 70 percent higher when compared to this time last year. The fallout will be most acutely seen in newborns and infants — if mothers are undernourished, they won’t be able to produce sufficient milk to feed their children and most likely will not be able to afford formula.
It’s imperative that Pakistan capitalize on its unique position at COP27 and provide tangible steps and actions that the government will take to address its “natural security” crisis as international actors weigh aid commitments.
A Call for Climate Justice
Up until now, the rallying cry from the current PML-N/PPP government has focused on climate justice. However, the narrative has expanded to include debt relief and climate financing. During his trip to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Sharif made a forceful argument for debt relief as a part of climate justice, stating that “all hell will break loose” if rich nations do not provide Pakistan with debt relief.
At COP27, Prime Minster Sharif, standing alongside U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, reiterated the call for debt relief and climate compensation for Pakistan as public debt was “hampering its recovery.” Even Guterres called upon the international community and multilateral lending institutions to reform their polices and allow for debt swaps, especially in the aftermath of natural disasters.
To this end, Pakistan could draw lessons from efforts by Small Island Developing States, who have engaged in discussions about tying debt relief to plans for adaption to climate change and disaster responses.
A “debt-for-climate” swap would entail all or part of a country’s multilateral or bilateral debt to be forgiven — under the condition that the borrowing country will utilize those newly available funds for climate adaptation, mitigation and disaster management. There are examples of debt-for-climate swaps on a smaller scale, such as between the United States and Jamaica for conservation efforts. But there is very little precedent for the scale of swap that Pakistan might pursue. To build traction for a large-scale debt-for-climate swap, Pakistan would need to have a tangible plan with clear benchmarks in place for how these freed-up funds would be utilized in an equitable manner.
Pakistan’s minister for climate change has also stated that climate justice will be the cornerstone of Pakistan’s diplomatic approach for COP27, noting that “Pakistan will seek to put the creation of a Loss and Damage Finance Facility on the agenda.”
This would be a first for the conference. Loss and damage are always integral to discussions based on Article 8 of the Paris Climate Agreement. But Pakistan’s strategy for COP27 would embed loss and damage as part of discussions surrounding Article 6, which deals with climate financing — something that is rarely included at these meetings.
While COP27 is not meant to be a venue to make direct appeals for flood assistance, there is a proposed donors’ conference to raise funds for post-flood aid expected to be held by the end of 2022. With that conference on the horizon, the narrative that Pakistan presents at COP27 — particularly regarding climate financing and loss and damage — will be crucial in laying the groundwork for a comprehensive plan to not just rehabilitate and reconstruct after the floods, but also to build resilience in the face of future climate-induced disaster.
How to Capitalize on COP27
A blank check for purely development assistance will not help Pakistan. The Pakistan state, at all levels, needs to focus on longer-term technical assistance and build their own internal capacity to create resilience to future natural disasters. At COP27, international partners and possible donors will be looking for indications that Pakistan is ready to commit to this sort of forward-thinking strategy for tackling its climate change challenges in the years ahead.
To some degree, Pakistan has laid the groundwork already. The most recent National Security Policy (NSP) included action against climate change as a component of human security. However, the NSP narrowly defined climate change by connecting it with water security. Food security and other related issues were discussed separately. Written in 2021 and published in the early months of 2022, the policy does not consider how climate change and climate-induced disasters impact all aspects of human security — such as migration and population, gender security, food security and health security. All of these issues were exacerbated by the floods and will worsen in the post-flood recovery period.
To address its overarching climate change challenge, the Pakistan government recently established the National Flood Response Coordination Center (NFRCC). Modeled after the mechanism used by the previous government to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the NFRCC is tasked with ensuring coordination across various agencies involved in both the flood response and rehabilitation efforts, as well as working with international donors and nongovernmental organizations on relief.
But new systems and bodies are not always the answer, or the answer alone. And if Pakistan is to capitalize on its opportunity at COP27 and beyond, the state must show a willingness to strengthen established institutions tasked with addressing disasters, whether natural or man-made. This includes the National Disaster Management Authority, which was established after the 2010 floods, along with their provincial counterparts. The Pakistani government must commit to adequate funding for these institutions as well as the National Disaster Risk Management Fund and the District Disaster Management Authorities across the country.
Moving forward, the Pakistani government must develop a roadmap for sweeping internal reforms when it comes to climate change preparedness and identify key entry points for the international community to support Pakistan’s efforts to adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
How the International Community Can Help
Where the United States and the international community can play an immediate role is in the provision of seeds that are high yield and drought- and flood-resistant, as well as more cooperation on improved agricultural practices now that we are in the planting season.
This would need to be combined with efforts to provide food to offset malnutrition — particularly for displaced children who are not able to return to school — and better planning for evacuation, especially temporary shelters for evacuees.
Longer term, the international community can also support comprehensive early warning systems and technologies to better gauge weather and rainfall patterns and ensure that this data can be used not just for predictive modeling, but also for better disaster preparedness and policy.
Given the scale and scope of the disaster, there is no sustainable recovery without international support. Which is why a comprehensive plan from the Pakistani side is imperative, especially if Pakistan can achieve a debt for climate swap from its international lenders. There can be no missteps from the ruling government on a single message.
Additionally, climate change is an issue where the current government and political opposition can work to find common ground on a way forward. It would signal to the international community that Pakistan is serious about addressing its climate change crisis and, if large-scale assistance or a debt-for-climate swap is provided, that there would not be a change in policy from one government to the next in recovery and rehabilitation efforts. This political maturity is needed across the board if Pakistan wants to ensure that they are prepared for the next climate-induced disaster.
Time for South Asia to Talk Climate
Beyond its prospects as a bloc in the burgeoning field of climate diplomacy, the potential benefits of cooperation on climate are essentially limitless for the region. The low-hanging fruit is sharing information and data.
By Ghulam Haider
That India and Pakistan are engaged in backchannel track II diplomacy is the worst kept secret in South Asia. It does not take a vivid imagination to guess what dominates the agenda at these talks: Kashmir, terrorism, trade, perhaps crisis behavior under the shadow of nuclear weapons. Welcome as such conversations are, they are almost assuredly lacking focus on the biggest crisis facing the region’s inhabitants: climate change.
South Asia’s Climate Change Vulnerability
This year has served as a living, heaving reminder of the World Bank’s dire warnings about climate change in the region. Pakistan’s flooding has led to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis: thousands dead, tens of millions homeless, millions of acres of food lost, and tens of billions of dollars’ worth of damages. Few witnesses to the country’s apocalyptic floods in 2010 could have foreseen that barely a decade later, their experience would be surpassed.
Meanwhile, India has faced both drought (West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh) and flooding (Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Telegana and Andhra Pradesh), even sometimes in the same state (Bihar). It has lost a quarter of its wheat and a third of its rice production. Bangladesh too has experienced drought and floods concomitantly.
Climate change is driving these disasters. Historically in South Asia, the four months of the monsoon supply 80% of annual rainfall. Climate change has accelerated that water cycle, leading to extreme levels of rain in short periods, and droughts otherwise. Certain Pakistani provinces and cities, for example, have been hit with 400 to 500% more rainfall this year than the annual average, sometimes in a matter of weeks.
By its nature, the climate crisis is transnational. A glacier melting in one locale changes agriculture in many others. Rivers that gather apace in one country flood another: the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, the three big rivers in the region, each span several countries. Air sheds, in which pollution circulates, do not respect political boundaries, evinced by cities across the subcontinent — like Kabul, Lahore, New Delhi and Dhaka — suffering severe air catastrophes.
Cooperation is the Key
Unfortunately, even among the most cooperative of countries, multilateral efforts to combat climate change are difficult because national leaders worry about sacrificing sovereignty, insincere international partners and/or domestic backlashes. These problems are exacerbated in South Asia, arguably the least integrated and most geopolitically dysfunctional region in the world.
But climate change is not a zero-sum game. It is the rare international political question on which India and Pakistan, not to mention Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, are — or should be — on the same side.
Dividing the world into rough blocs, one which has caused climate change (the rich) and the other that is suffering the worst of it (the poor), it is clear where South Asia belongs. While the G20 countries have been jointly responsible for 80 per cent of global emissions, Pakistan, with a population of almost 250 million, and the site of “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination,” in the words of the U.N. secretary general, has been collectively responsible for less than 1%.
There is a lot to be gained by India, Pakistan and Bangladesh carving out a regional approach to climate change. Indeed, for many in South Asia, from government officials to development experts to journalists, there is a strong moral and economic argument for Western nations paying climate reparations to their countries. But for such a position to assume real geopolitical significance, South Asian leaders must band together and make the case in a unified and coherent way. It would be difficult for world powers to ignore two billion people speaking as one.
Beyond its prospects as a bloc in the burgeoning field of climate diplomacy, the potential benefits of cooperation on climate are essentially limitless for the region. The low-hanging fruit is sharing information and data.
First, upstream countries can share real-time data on river flow to downstream neighbors, limiting the damage from floods. Second, there can be collaboration across the eight Himalayan countries to monitor and report snowfall and ice patterns on glaciers — data which has global, not just regional, implications. (At present, there are only two posts for monitoring glaciers across the entire Himalayan range). Third, more sophisticated metropolitan departments, such as India’s, can share advanced storm warnings with their neighbors; in general, there can be considerably greater coordination on disaster management. Fourth, farming communities can share best practices, such as information on crop varieties or reusing crop waste as biofuel.
Such measures have the benefit of not seeking to change behavior, which can be challenging, but telling others what one already knows. They also enjoy ample precedent.
Thousands of lives have been saved by China supplying both India and Bangladesh with data on the Brahmaputra river, as well as villages in India, Bhutan and Nepal using WhatsApp to share real-time information on river flows. Several South Asian countries have learned of the inadvisability of kilns or the advisability of drip agriculture from one another. Indian and Bangladeshi scientists helped restore the Hilsa fish from overfishing. Until half a decade ago, Pakistani and Indian activists managed to meet regularly. Heat mitigation plans emanating from one country have been adopted by cities in others.
Let Local and Provincial Leaders and Communities Lead
But rather than be ad-hoc, such information and data-sharing needs a stable, institutionalized mechanism. Importantly, New Delhi, Islamabad and Dhaka need not drive such conversations. If anything, collaboration is more likely to be sustained and useful if the capitals, major politicians and big ministries get out of the way.
Instead, states (India’s and Pakistan’s Punjabs, say) and cities can lead the way. Municipal authorities, especially, are on the frontlines of the battles over water, electricity and pollution, and must be at the forefront of discussions on climate. After all, if Arctic cities spread across eight countries can institutionalize meetings at the mayoral level, why not Himalayan cities such as Kabul, Peshawar, Kathmandu and Srinagar?
Then there are harder sells and steps requiring more political capital. For instance, there is friction involved in almost each of the dozens of treaties governing river waters in South Asia. Drafting the next generation of water treaties, which don’t just divide rivers but rather share their management and benefits, is a major challenge.
At a similar scale of ambition, governments and farmers have to consider wholesale and fundamental changes in agriculture, from what the public eats to what farmers grow to what governments tax and subsidize. Similarly, the region’s very conceptualization of natural resources needs updating: for example, can river water be used for transit, as it was before the advent of roads, to benefit poverty-stricken communities living on river banks?
Climate is also a part of thorny discussions on trade. For instance, were trade discussions to advance, it is probable that India’s considerably more advanced market in electric vehicles, if opened to Pakistan, would benefit air quality across the Indo-Gangetic plain.
A Region-wide Energy Grid Builds Interdependence
Finally, there is the extreme end of the spectrum, the “big idea” that is least likely but could transform South Asian and indeed global politics: a region-wide renewable energy grid. The complementarity of demand and supply makes the region highly suitable for such plans. Between hydropower, solar and wind, South Asia has enormous potential for renewable energy. Connecting disparate states across thousands of miles to a grid in which everyone participates and contributes could be an economic, ecological and energy miracle.
The idea of sworn enemies putting their economies in the hands of the other seems fanciful and foolish, nigh on suicidal. Haven’t we received lesson enough from the Russia-Ukraine war that relying on geopolitical rivals for energy is perilous?
But a region-wide grid would, by virtue of being spread through the many countries, decrease any one actor’s leverage. Rather than Russia cutting off gas to Europe, the better analogy from that continent might be the European Coal and Steel Cooperation, the antecedent to the European Union, which married French and German steel and coal production based on the idea that they could better avoid war if they put their economic fate into the other’s hands. It was essentially a form of mutually assured destruction — a concept Indians and Pakistanis are, of course, already well-versed in.
To be sure, despite an Indian prime minister recently outlining the precursor to such an idea, no reasonable observer would bet that South Asia is ready for such deep engagement, stricken as it is by decades of wars, threats, mistrust and ugly nationalism. Cooperation on water and air within countries, among provinces and states, has proved hard enough, let alone across rancorous international borders. Separately, the political economy of many South Asian societies has bequeathed vast amounts of wealth and political capital in the hands of real-estate magnates, who often stand in the way of sensible policy adjustment to climate change.
Regardless of the specifics, it is well past time for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh – along with Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives – to put aside their squabbles and begin region-wide conversations on climate adaptation and mitigation. Such conversations contain the potential for permanently transforming the tone, tenor and substance of international relations in South Asia, as well as substantially raising the neighborhood’s joint capabilities to limit the damage wreaked by climate crises. Pakistan’s deadly floods serve as just the latest reminder that few tasks in global affairs are more urgent.
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