by Raheela Nazir
ISLAMABAD, Sept. 21 (Xinhua) -- With climate change increasingly jeopardizing human wellbeing and natural environments, Pakistani experts and officials highlighted that the climate crisis needed urgent action at the global level to ensure a livable future.
Countries around the world, especially developed countries, are required to make effective concerted efforts to counter the negative fallouts of climate change, the experts said during a recently held seminar on climate change.
Speaking on the occasion, Syed Mujtaba Hussain, senior additional secretary of the Ministry of Climate Change, said that the climate agenda has to be an all-nation effort, encompassing collaboration between all stakeholders from the public, private sector, and civil society organizations.
"We must translate the plan of action into actionable projects to tap into the real potential of international climate finance. This objective is not achievable without meaningful involvement of the private sector as well as the civil society," he said.
Abid Qaiyum Suleri, executive director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, an Islamabad-based think tank, said that climate change is a multi-pronged issue, which is manifesting in different forms and affecting countries without any discrimination.
"We need a multipronged strategy to address the complex challenges by joining our heads and hearts to find viable solutions, making the private sector part of the solutions for a meaningful climate action," Suleri said.
He stressed that renewable energy transformation and technology should be adopted to replace carbon-intensive solutions with renewables.
Talking about the financial commitments of rich countries, Executive Director of Civil Society Coalition for Climate Change Aisha Khan said that the commitments made by the "Global North" in the Paris Agreement on global climate action have to be met.
"The upcoming 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change should focus on increasing investments in global climate finance architecture, resilient infrastructure and loss and damage," she said, adding that public finance is insufficient, public private partnerships and blended finance must play a key role in climate action. ■
