PM attends COP28 in Dubai as world leaders meet for climate action

DUBAI: Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar on Friday joined the world leaders at the high-level segment of the 28th Conference of the Parties (COP 28) of the United Nations to discuss actions on climate change.

The prime minister was received by President of the United Arab Emirates Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and the Secretary General of the United Nations António Guterres on his arrival at the venue, Dubai Expo City.

Besides attending the opening session of World Climate Action Summit, PM Kakar is expected to meet the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Estonia, on the sidelines of the conference.

The prime minister will also participate in the Zayed sustainability award ceremony. Caretaker ministers including Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar, Climate Change Minister Ahmed Irfan Aslam and Energy Minister Muhammad Ali are also participating in COP28.

Earlier, the prime minister stressed the need to immediately operationalize the Loss & Damage Fund, ensuring its utilization on merit to cope with the issues of climate change.

Pakistan welcomed the historic achievement at COP28 as the Loss and Damage (L&D) Fund sees swift operationalization, with an astounding $575 million pledged within the first hour of the conference’s opening session along with $225 million committed by the European Union.

PM Kakar said the utilization of Fund should not be linked with the development funds and loans from multilateral financial entities, but the funding should be additional and tangible.

The prime minister, in an interview on the sidelines of COP28, said that currently Pakistan’s focus was on transformation from the coal-based power plants to renewable energy projects to contribute towards minimizing the climate change impacts in the region and beyond.

“This is the area which could attract interest of countries here in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the settled economies and democracies on the Western side, so it is an opportunity for all of them and all of us,” he added.

He said the climate change was no more a fashionable point to discuss as it hit Pakistan very hard last year. The prime minister pointed out that Pakistan was not primarily responsible for contributing to the climate disaster in which the country’s two provinces Sindh and Balochistan faced historical devastation.

“Everyone knows who have been contributing in last one century so it is more of a question of an honest conversation rather than passing judgment on countries and economies,” he remarked.

Therefore, he said, the responsibility shown by the wealthy nations themselves would be a welcome step. To a question whether the Fund should be operationalized through a United Nation framework, the prime minister said, “If we wait for a UN framework it will take years of years. Therefore, initially it is possible to operationalize it under the World Bank and other multilateral entities.”