A flood victim in Nowshera, Pakistan August 31, 2022. FAYAZ AZIZ/ Portal
The equation is presented in a particularly unfair way: Pakistan, which emits less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions, is one of the nations hardest hit by climate change. This was recalled by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif during his long-awaited speech at the podium of the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the World Climate Change Conference (COP27) on Tuesday 8 November in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt). ). That summer, his country was hit by the worst floods in its history. “All of this happened despite our very low carbon footprint,” he said, reiterating that it was “of course a man-made disaster.”
Also read: Article reserved for our subscribers COP27: the sensitive issue of losses and damages on the official agenda
Mr Sharif called for additional financial support in the form of aid to countries suffering from the consequences of climate change, like Pakistan. Because more debt would represent a “deadly financial trap,” he judged, while Islamabad had to fall back on an IMF rescue plan again this year to counter the economic and financial crisis. Pakistan, which currently chairs the Group of 77 + China, a bloc of more than 130 developing countries, has made the thorny issue of loss and damage a priority. And for the first time, the issue was put on the COP27 agenda.
The appalling floods that ravaged Pakistan affected 33 million people, killed over 1,700 people, destroyed hundreds of thousands of homes, damaged thousands of kilometers of roads and hundreds of bridges across the country. They also had an electric shock in public opinion. “Everyone in Pakistan has realized that we have the right to demand climate justice and to push for predictable and transparent green finance,” Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s climate minister, told Le Monde. In the midst of the disaster, it had multiplied interventions in the international media, linking floods and climate change.
“Hundreds of Years of Imperialism”
“These floods have created a political discourse on climate change in Pakistan like never before,” confirms Ahmad Rafay Alam, environmental activist and lawyer. “Given the scale of the devastation, the prime minister and army chief, one of the most powerful people in the country, began reminding that Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions,” Mr Alam continues. From then on, according to the lawyer, the reasoning was clear: “We have nothing to do with it, it is you [les pays industrialisés] who started. »
You still have 58.82% of this article to read. The following is for subscribers only.