Global community lacks action for climate resilient future: Minister

• Senator Sherry Rehman was addressing the Parliamentary Meeting at COP27 Summit.
• She said global warming was not going to remain at the 1.5 degrees temperature rise.
• She said the World Bank has estimated that Pakistan lost $30bn due to floods.

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman on Sunday said the world community at COP-27 had a spirit of unity, collaboration, and cooperation but a lack of action was hindering the way to a climate-resilient future.

The minister gave her keynote address at the Parliamentary Meeting at the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP-27) under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) being held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

She said there was a climate clock running at the COP-27 meeting where there were intense negotiations underway. Prior to her address, a two-minute video prepared by the Ministry of Climate Change was played highlighting the Century Breaking Climate Events in Pakistan.

Senator Sherry Rehman said, “Let us pay attention to what we are doing to each other and this planet. And there’s no other option for us and no ‘planet B’ where we can migrate.”

She added that the video clip was a tiny projection of the scale and magnitude of the century breaking climate catastrophes. “As the UN secretary general said a scale and tragedy we have never seen before.”

The minister warned that the global warming was not going to remain at the 1.5 degrees temperature rise rather hurtling towards 3 degrees future.

“I am coming from a country where there has been 3 degrees Celsius rise in overall summer heat which is not habitable for human civilization. I do not think that we need to be sanguine or indifferent to the coming crisis for humanity and the planet we live on,” she said.

Senator Rehman emphasised that it was not a prophecy of dome and was happening now, adding, “I didn’t show the other video that showed what went on the year. The forest fires, heat waves and it’s one after the other. There has been a record over 53°C highest temperature where the people have died from such shocks.”

@UNFPCCC keynote. If we don’t find common ground on saving our home,our planet,where do we go go from here? Because right now we are still on a collective path to Armageddon. Let’s look to turn down the burn, and to redistribute to those facing the fallout with justice @COP27P pic.twitter.com/aPaltCCzV8

— SenatorSherryRehman (@sherryrehman) November 13, 2022

“They have the right to live, breath, till the soil, farm their communities and work in the cities that are not burning them out. These are the fundamental rights.”

The Minister informed that in Pakistan, the government still had to resettle flood affected people, feed and, clothe them. “All our money has been diverted to cater half of the 33 million population impacted due to unprecedented torrential rain floods during this predating winter.”

She said the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Pakistan were at the COP-27 forum pitching for a greater share of this collective responsibility.

Senator Sherry Rehman mentioned that a monsoon of biblical magnitude with flooding hit the country while glaciers were melting at a faster pace of three times more than the global average.

She informed that there were glacial lake outburst floods in the north of the country which were managed to save lives due to long-term interventions of UN agencies for resilient communities and early warning systems in this region.

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While quoting a global study, she said the climate impacts had emerged as the biggest health emergency and not the pandemic at the moment.

“This is the voice of the frontline bearing the maximum burden of environmental degradation. The race to catch up 3°C will not start in 2050 rather sooner if we don’t do anything.”

She said the World Bank has estimated that Pakistan lost some $30 billion due to floods.  She said Pakistan would need some $348 billion climate finance to to protect itself from climate shocks faced by the country.

“When one ecosystem starts dying and it’s the law of nature that it spreads to others. And what is happening in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan,” she concluded.