COLOMBO (Muhammad Salman Khan) – The 6th Asia-Pacific Climate Change Adaption Forum held in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 17-19 October, 2016 is a primary regional platform held for the climate adaptation practitioners to meet, share and propagate experiences of policymakers, scientists, donors, youth and representatives from over 50 countries.
One of the key sessions of the conference, “Financing adaptation and adapting finance: Mainstreaming climate finance into national and local budgets” was represented by Syed Ghazanfar Abbas Jilani, additional finance secretary representing the government of Pakistan stated that, “Coal fired power plants aren’t a high priority of investment in energy sector of Pakistan, much of the finance will be directed is being directed towards Neelum-Jhelum and Dassu hydro projects on river Indus.”
Further saying that, “The Government of Pakistan is moving towards a moratorium on further expansion of coal fired power plant and only three projects are in development which includes a 1200 megahertz coal fire station in Sahiwal, Punjab, a 500 megahertz coal power plant in Sindh and another 150 megahertz in KPK.”
Some of the issues that Pakistan faces when it comes to financing climate adaptation is the lack of political ownership, because which it is difficult at times to convince the political leadership of the country to direct investment into climate projects which aren’t more visible compare to other development projects.
Lack of proper research is another issue faced in financing climate projects because of scarcity of reliable data, implementation of adaptation projects often faces difficulty but with the recent research work carried out in KPK many projects are being implemented there that can be replicated in other provinces too.
For first time this year climate budgeting after gender budgeting was introduced into the policy framework of Pakistan by the Ministry of Finance, because of the lack of co-ordination between different ministries and sectors policy guidelines must be developed to integrate different sectors, provincial and federal ministries to work on climate adaptation and other environmental issues in Pakistan.
Pakistan being one of the ten worst affected countries impacted from the wrath of climate change, is taking steps to adapt and mitigate from its effects by implementing adaptation projects with the help of the recently acquired grant of $36 million from the Green Climate Fund – GCF the Ministry of Planning, Pakistan in consultation with European Union will be implementing projects across the country it was announced at the session.
