ISLAMABAD, Oct 14 (APP): The experts at a media training on Loss and Damage Fund and climate finance mechanisms Saturday called for expedited climate action with localisation of climate finance instruments, and enhanced community engagement in rolling out policy interventions to establish projects to benefit international funding facilities.
The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) organised a one-day journalist capacity development workshop on Climate Action at the launch of four thematic policy papers.
Deputy Executive Director, SDPI presentated a detailed account of the four thematic policy papers shedding light on climate finance, Sendai Framework on Disaster Risk Reduction, capacity issues and institutional shortcomings and Pakistan’s case on loss and damage fund reparations.
Dr Shafqat Munir said climate action is a shared responsibility and demands a collective response from all as a whole of society approach.
“We as humans needs to take stock of our carbon footprint that impacts the earth due to our actions and activities,” he added.
He explained that climate action is needed everywhere as Pakistan is the fifth highest livestock producer in the world that has made it among the biggest methane emitters.
Commenting on the research papers by SDPI, he said access to climate finance is difficult to access globally, whereas the best way is to provide a bankable project against our nationally determined contributions (NDCs) with a policy framework made on it.
“We need to club the three initiatives Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Framework (4RF), National Adaptation Plan and NDCs and develop a project on it to tap climate finance for targeted interventions,” he added.
He also noted recommendations stating engagement of climate investment funds (CIFs) and significant bilateral multilateral funds in addition to already engaged avenues, and alignment, coherence and synergy of existing policies at national and international level.
He also underlined that the country had technical and human resource capacity issues, whereas transparency in utilisation of funds was a major priority area for international climate finance institutions that needs to be focussed by the government.The SDPI paper focused on community based disaster risk management engagement and the key sectors lacking proper actions.
He said major challenges to institutional capacities are enforcement and evaluation in project implementation whereas public awareness and institutional coordination also needed due attention of the quarters concerned.
There was a need to learn from the communities, he said, adding, “but institutions have disconnect with the community. However, it is the local government always leads internationally in disasters.”
He commented that the country was paying the price of in action whereas challenges to access loss and damage fund reparations for the country are limited finances, expertise, scientific data, and the fund’s operationalisation concerns.He ended that despite all chalkenges the country will have to prepare for it.
Shad Begum, founding director of the Association for Behavior and Knowledge Transformation (ABKT), an organization working towards the economic and political empowerment of communities in newly merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said the country’s disaster management institutions failed to implement it’s lessons learnt in the earthquake of 2005 in the next disasters like 2010 floods. She added that there was no engagement with local community leaders to devise strategies based on indigenous knowledge.
The climate crisis is surging at an unprecedented rate and the stakeholders are confused to address it, she added. She said there was no productive engagement of the youth that resulted in frustration among the young population particularly of the newly merged districts of KP.
“Local led initiatives with indigenous approach should be promoted. We are connecting with elderly people to explore indigenous knowledge to have sustainable and inclusive interventions in agriculture projects and it should be followed in climate change related initiatives as well,” Shaad Begum said.
The members of the civil society and journalist fraternity engaged in a healthy working group sessions to explore the policy papers’ recommendations.
