Addressing Climate Change And Environment Crisis In A Post-covid Scenario
- Considering that sustainability is being mainstreamed into the development agenda of Pakistan, the corporate sector needs to be mobilized, and businesses must upskill their leaders and workforce to be “foundationally competent” and equip themselves for navigating the agenda.
- To ensure compliance with Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), Pakistan must design a current timeframe (identifying emissions in 2021/2022 and the decarbonization potential) and then mirror the best practices around financial guidelines to commit to yearly reductions.
- COP26 has revived the carbon market, allowing carbon trading between different countries. Since an additional charge on carbon trading is guaranteed for emerging countries, Pakistan should seek a share of finance obtained from carbon transactions and then have businesses pre-position themselves as this could further the cause of doing projects that can serve as carbon sinks.
- To bridge the gap between public and private sector organizations around clean energy development agenda, there is a need to develop a Parliamentary Caucus with a properly defined working framework, goals, and action plans for the short-, medium-, and long-term targets.
- Pakistan can develop a “Joint Corporate Pledge” backed by all corporate sectors to bridge the gap between public and private sector organizations.
- The provision of electricity to 50 million population living without it would require developing off-grid solutions in remote and rural areas. Along with offsetting the cost of grid expansion, this would lead to local employment and lowering the losses of transmission and distribution.
- To mobilize the private sector investments in clean energy, public sector would have to play a critical role in leveraging and de-risking the needed finance and accelerating the green capital market. GOP should use fiscal policies to promote the development of green finance and use fiscal funding to guide credit funding and social capital into a green investment, green credit, and green securities.
- Meeting climate targets for each country requires international cooperation. This includes sustainable finance, technical support, transfer and exchange of low-carbon technologies, and environmental goods.
- Decarbonization in Pakistan needs to go beyond just the power sector to sustainable fuel consumption in the power and transport sector. Through collaboration with developed countries, Pakistan needs to harvest the opportunity of hydrogen-based fuels.
- Pakistan needs to have a parliamentary oversight to see how the climate mitigation measures are working for the country. Effective monitoring measures are required to add value to climate change policies.
- Considering the variation in climate change impacts on different population groups, climate justice must also address the issues around just transition by considering marginalized communities in policy making process.
