What should be Civil Society Perspective a Pre-Cancun Climate Change Conference

Experts while highlighting the facts about the problem concerning Climate Change said that Pakistan is amongst the lowest emitters and is the worst victim of climate change. The magnitude of vulnerability is unavoidable for Pakistan when it comes to impacts of Climate Change.



Malik Amin Aslam, Former Minister of State For Environment, Dr Asad Majeed, Director General, UN, Foreign Office, Mahmood Akhter Cheema, Head, IUCN and Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, Head of Climate Change, Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Spoke at Seminar entitled Pre-Cancun Climate Change Conference: What Should Be Civil Society Perspective? Seminar was organized by The Climate Change Study Centre at Sustainable Development Policy Institute and was chaired by Malik Amin.

Shakeel Ahmad Ramay, head climate change study centre mentioned that food security and agricultural concerns are being taken into consideration in the negotiations. He further added that Climate change should not only be taken as a threat but also as an opportunity.

Malik Amin said that current year can be regarded as the year of climate catastrophe for Pakistan considering three major calamities such as Hunza glaciers outburst causing avalanche and land slides. Followed by heavy rainfalls resulting in flooding. In terms of negotiations complexity keeps on growing and currently negotiations are underway on two tracks; Kyoto and Copenhagen track, at Copenhagen finance carrots were announced but the recent AGF report highlights that those were merely inefficient bluffs and there was no commitment of the $100 billion pledge. On the issue of Adaptation, he said that it was a core issue for Pakistan and there was a need for defining our vulnerability position. He quoted a World Bank document which stated that Pakistan had already spent $4 billion on climate related problems.

Mahmood Akhtar Cheema, IUCN while highlighting the unexpected results of COP 15 said that the resultant Copenhagen accord that came out of it even that did not mention how the various decisions in the accord are to be taken forward. Gaps in the accord must be kept in mind while negotiating at Cancun . The accord did not set out medium term emission goals and practical pathway to achieve the 2 degrees Celsius target. Some issues seem to be close to resolution as consensus is likely in adaptation, reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries (the REDD+ mechanism); technology transfer and capacity building. Decisions at COP 16 can restore and boost confidence in UNFCCC process and outcome of the negotiations and serve as milestone for strengthening international action and reducing greenhouse gas. He maintained that rapid and robust actions must be taken by all the states, communities and individuals to cut emissions. Confidence building measures are extremely important, ecosystem based approaches must be focused upon, new and additional fast track funding also needs to be made available for adaptation and mitigation. Furthermore there is need for establishment of an implementation oriented adaptation framework, immediate disbursement of new and additional financial means to enable adaptation actions and it is also imperative that the importance of building capacity for action at national and local level both on adaptation and mitigation be emphasized.

Mr. Asad Majeed Khan Director General UN highlighted the fact that Pakistan ’s role in multilateral negotiations is not well noted or appreciated nationally although Pakistan has a very constructive role in the negotiations at global level. At Rio Pakistan contributed a lot towards the negotiations, Pakistan chaired G77 at Rio in 1992. Pakistan was also instrumental in G77 at Bali . He emphasized that there are four major challenges that must be dealt with, Firstly it is equity and fairness, developed countries have certain objections towards emerging economies and historical responsibility is difficult to determine. Secondly there is challenge of mitigation and adaptation capacity. Willingness is another challenge post COP 15 many a people have started challenging the science of climate change. Lastly it is vulnerability; physical definition of vulnerability was given initially which became a political one at Bali . He said that dealing with all of these challenges is important for concrete solution.

In the discussion session it was mentioned that the new definition of vulnerability proposed by Pakistan mentions it to be a result of informal deliberations with likeminded delegations. It was also mentioned that Pakistan ’s role continues to be very effective in the negotiations and especially at the level of G77 and has shown good leadership at such level. Malik Amin Aslam mentioned that Pakistan maintains that climate finance must be streamlined and institutionalized. A committee should be established to audit the commitments of all the nations, climate finance proposal mentioned direct access finance, finance proposal on the part of Pakistan was accepted and submitted as G77 proposal.