LAHORE: Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Deputy Executive Director Dr Shafqat Munir has revealed that the Global North had pledged to mobilize US$100 billion for climate action for the developing countries by 2020, but the pledge remains unfulfilled yet.
With climate change affecting countries indiscriminately, climate financing from the Global North has become a far-fetched dream. “In this situation, the developing countries must take responsibility of their own future, harness indigenous solutions and mobilize local funding to combat the climate crisis,” he stressed.
He expressed these remarks while shedding light on the climate financing issues during a concluding panel discussion here at a local hotel on Thursday. The panel debate was organised by the SDPI, in collaboration with Oxfam Pakistan, on “Increasing Climatic Resilience in Punjab and Launch of Research Studies on Climate Issues.”
Discussing national policy instruments on climate action, Dr Shafqat Munir urged that National Adaptation Plan must be referred while PC1 projects are developed for concerted national climate action and bridge the financing gap by leveraging local financing. He further added that the Action Plan identifies financing avenues linking it to the mid-term budgetary framework.
Dr Shafqat Munir shed light on country’s position on climate finance, institutional capacities for climate action, policy frameworks and the loss and damage that has been created at the global level.
He said the crisis of climate change had no boundaries and it impacted all the nations without any distinction. However, the country is lagging in terms of effective implementation of its convincing policy instruments established to cope with the climate disasters.
He also stressed the need to revise the national disaster risk reduction (DRR) policy to set targets and key areas like risk understanding, governance, financing and overall framework for collaboration. Members of the academia, civil society, journalists and business community were in attendance during the discussion.
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