By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman on Wednesday said the “green financing” was imperative for mitigation of climate change where adaptation plan was prerequisite to ensure the climate resilience of the country.
The Minister convened a meeting of the Taskforce on Green Financing, discussing at length, the framework and policies required to deal with the access to climate funds.
The meeting was attended by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister (SAPM) on Government Effectiveness Dr Jahanzaib Khan and representatives from Economic Affairs Division, Foreign Affairs and Finance Division.
Talking on the issue of Green Financing, the minister stressed, “We are unable to unlock any climate financing despite our need for $101 Billion merely for EV Transition. GEF and GCF are the sole UNFCCC entities in Pakistan, dealing with climate financing. But the funding process is lengthy and ineffective.
Adaptation rebuilding and mitigation would require sizeable funding that is yet to materialize. We need to look at our own ability to establish climate governance across provinces.”
In conclusion, she stressed, “At this point, in the flood-hit areas, we have no ability to execute climate governance.
33 million people have been affected badly. All our climate resilience funds have been disbursed for helping the flood-hit.
We need to look for other donor platforms, which can provide our country with the much-needed resilience and recovery funds. Speed and scale for adaptation climate finance will be on the agenda for the upcoming conference of the parties (COP).”
