Dawn
-
08:44 Jun 18, 2025
Former climate change minister, PPP Vice President Senator Sherry Rehman, assailed the federal government on Wednesday for slashing funds for environment protection in the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2025-2026. The federal government has earmarked a major chunk of next year’s budget for climate-resilient development, but its failure to set a clear course of action and policy contradictions weigh heavily on financial allocations that amount to hundreds of billions. The budget under the head of ‘environment protection’ has also reduced from Rs7.2billion to Rs3.1bn, with funds for ‘pollution abatement’ going down from Rs6.29bn to Rs3.1bn. “As far as climate is concerned, I am disappointed to share that in the environment protection budget, which used to be Rs7.2bn — which was already quite low — has now been slashed by more than half to Rs3.1bn. What will we do with this money? We will start depending more and more on international money. There have already been aid cuts in climate funding internationally,“ ...