Climate | Pakistan

PESHAWAR - Climate change and natural disasters have witnessed as significant threats to the economy and financial stability of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said a recent assessment report.

• Allocations in all climate heads face cuts, except for disaster management • Experts call for transparency in climate spending, structural reforms ISLAMABAD: Climate allocations in the next fiscal year’s federal budget again fall short of putting Pakistan on a path towards a climate-smart future and inclusive growth despite the immediate risks it poses to the country. Except for disaster management finance, allocations in almost all climate categories have decreased compared to the outgoing financial year. The mitigation funds have been reduced from Rs603 billion to Rs124 billion, while adaptation money has been slashed from Rs85bn to Rs70bn. The “green component” of subsidies also experienced budget cuts, with the energy sector’s allocation declining to Rs423 billion from Rs529 billion. Similarly, the food, industry, transport, and agriculture sectors also faced cuts in the proposed budget presented by the government on June 12. Giovanni Maurice Pradipta, who is a policy adviser at global NGO Germa­nwatch,...

Climate colonialism argues that the climate crisis is not an accident — it is the outcome of centuries of extraction. The world’s richest countries, a small percentage of the global population, are responsible for the majority of historical greenhouse gas emissions while regions like South Asia contribute little but face the harshest impact today. It is estimated that the G20 countries produce about 80 per cent year on year of global greenhouse gases. This disproportionate extraction and consumption of resources by a handful of countries contributes to crises that the rest of the world pays for. The climate colonialism framework connects past exploitation with present suffering by examining the drivers of the climate crisis — colonialism, capitalism and consumerism. Ahmed Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer and former member of the Pakistan Climate Change Council, discusses all this and much more as he dives into drivers behind the climate crisis with DawnNews. As Pakistan confronts the accelerating realities...

• Warns of 14.5m excess deaths concentrated mainly in vulnerable regions • Says health, construction and agriculture sectors could lose over $1.5tr ISLAMABAD: The World Economic Forum (WEF) warned in a fresh insight report that climate change, if left unaddressed, could result in 14.5 million excess deaths and trillion of dollars in economic loses by 2050, concentrated in the world’s most disadvantaged regions and populations. The report, “Building Economic Resilience to the Health Impacts of Climate Change,” says deaths from extreme weather events in those regions have been about 15 times higher over the past decade. It also warns that climate-health impacts threaten business resilience and that today, less than 5 per cent of global adaptation funding targets health protection. “This is a dangerous gap that also presents an opportunity for private-sector action,” the report said. The WEF defines a Climate and Health Business Framework and applies it to four highly exposed sectors to identify specific climate...