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SUMMARY of the Article “Climate Resilience” by Naseer Memon, Dawn [Published on December 21st, 2023]

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The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has urged Pakistan to incorporate climate resilience into its development projects, emphasizing this shift in the FY2024-25 budget. The IMF advocates for a comprehensive approach, urging the alignment of the budget with climate change adaptation, green budgeting practices, and explicit documentation of the nexus between the budget and climate-related actions. The article underscores the need for a paradigm shift in development planning and budgeting, particularly to address climate concerns. Reflecting on last year’s floods that caused significant losses, the author highlights the importance of climate-sensitive planning and the reallocation of priorities to prevent and mitigate climate-related disasters. The concept of climate-sensitive budgeting extends beyond financial allocations, emphasizing the integration of climate change policies into sectoral planning and management. The author suggests applying a “climate lens” to development projects, focusing on adaptation at the sectoral and project levels. The article also proposes expanding environmental impact assessments to include climate impact assessments and prioritizes key areas such as water conservation, disaster mitigation, agriculture, renewable energy, and public health. While acknowledging Pakistan’s current spending on climate-related sectors, a significant financial gap remains, requiring concerted efforts at both federal and provincial levels, with an emphasis on locally contextualized climate change policies.

Easy/Short SUMMARY:

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urges Pakistan to incorporate climate resilience in its development projects through the FY2024-25 budget. The article emphasizes the need for a shift in development planning and budgeting to address climate concerns, advocating for green budgeting, explicit documentation of climate-related actions, and alignment with climate change adaptation. Reflecting on past floods, the author highlights the importance of climate-sensitive planning to prevent disasters. The concept extends beyond financial allocations, emphasizing policy integration into sectoral planning and project levels. Key areas for attention include water conservation, disaster mitigation, agriculture, and renewable energy. While acknowledging current spending, a significant financial gap exists, requiring efforts at federal and provincial levels, with an emphasis on locally contextualized climate policies.

SOLUTIONS of The Problem:

1. Integration of Climate Lens into Development Projects:

• Implement a climate lens approach to development projects, emphasizing adaptation at the sectoral and project levels.

2. Expansion of Environmental Impact Assessment to Climate Impact Assessment:

• Broaden the scope of environmental impact assessments to include climate impact assessments for better climate-proofing of projects.

3. Prioritization of Key Areas:

• Set priorities on water conservation, disaster mitigation, resilient agriculture, efficient irrigation systems, emissions reduction, renewable energy, public health, sanitation, storm drainage, and afforestation.

4. Synergies in Key Sectors:

• Develop integrated strategies to create synergies among key sectors, aligning with the Pakistan National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Plan 2023-2030.

5. Provincial Government Leadership:

• Provincial governments should lead in climate-sensitive planning and budgeting, leveraging locally contextualized climate change policies.

6. Robust Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Plan:

• Develop a robust climate mitigation and adaptation plan at provincial levels to reduce vulnerability to hydro-climatic disasters and create fiscal space for other developmental needs.

7. Financial Resource Allocation:

• Allocate financial resources to sectors contributing to offsetting climate change impacts, ensuring that spending aligns with climate resilience goals.

8. Public Expenditure Review:

• Conduct periodic reviews, like the Climate Public Expenditures and Institutional Review in 2017, to assess spending on climate-related sectors and identify gaps.

9. Community Resilience Programs:

• Implement community resilience programs within vulnerable areas to enhance local capacity to withstand climate-induced challenges.

10. Multifarious Benefits Recognition:

• Acknowledge the multifarious benefits of climate-sensitive projects, including disaster mitigation, ecosystem restoration, greening the economy, and creating resilient communities.

IMPORTANT Facts and Figures Given in the Article:

• IMF Recommendation Focus: Incorporating climate resilience into development projects.
• Recommended Budget Shift: FY2024-25.
• Key Aspects of IMF Prescription: Green budgeting, budget tracking, climate-related spending information, and alignment with climate change adaptation.
• Losses from Last Year’s Floods: $30 billion.
• Key Climate Priority Areas: Water conservation, disaster mitigation, agriculture, efficient irrigation, emissions reduction, renewable energy, public health, sanitation, storm drainage, and afforestation.
• Climate Public Expenditures and Institutional Review, 2017: Pakistan is already spending significantly on sectors countering climate change impacts.

MCQs from the Article:

1. What does the IMF recommend for Pakistan in the FY2024-25 budget?
   A. Economic reforms
   B. Incorporate climate resilience into development projects
   C. Increase defense spending
   D. Reduce public expenditure

2. What is the proposed approach to climate-sensitive budgeting?
   A. Financial

allocations for relevant ministries
B. Integration of policies and measures into ongoing sectoral planning
C. Allocating funds for renewable energy projects
D. Establishing a separate climate fund

1. What did last year’s floods cost Pakistan in terms of losses and damage?
   A. $10 billion
   B. $30 billion
   C. $50 billion
   D. Not mentioned in the article

2. What is the suggested expansion of environmental impact assessments?
   A. Economic impact assessments
   B. Social impact assessments
   C. Climate impact assessments
   D. Technological impact assessments

3. What is emphasized as the next goalpost after making the development process climate-proof?
   A. Allocating funds to relevant ministries
   B. Expanding environmental impact assessments
   C. Setting the right priorities
   D. Integrating climate policies into development projects

VOCABULARY:

1. Paradigm Shift (noun) (نمونہ کا تبدیل): A fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.
2. Prescribed (adjective) (مقرر): Recommended or authorized by medical prescription.
3. Nexus (noun) (ملکرن): A connection or series of connections linking two or more things.
4. Green Budgeting (phrase) (ہرا بجٹ): Integrating environmental and sustainability criteria into budgetary decisions.
5. Preempt (verb) (پہلے ہی روک لینا): Take action in order to prevent an anticipated event from happening.
6. Mitigation (noun) (کمی): The action of reducing the severity, seriousness, or painfulness of something.
7. Calamities (noun) (آفات): An event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster.
8. Transcends (verb) (پار کرنا): Be or go beyond the range or limits of.
9. Infuse (verb) (ڈالنا): Fill, pervade, or inspire.
10. Perfunctory (adjective) (سرسری): Carried out with minimal effort or reflection.
11. Circumventing (verb) (چھکا کرنا): Find a way around (an obstacle).
12. Spineless (adjective) (بے رب): Lacking determination or strength.
13. Torments (noun) (آزمائش): Severe physical or mental suffering.
14. Fiscal Space (phrase) (مالی فضا): The budgetary room a government has to provide resources for public purposes without compromising debt sustainability or macroeconomic stability.
15. Multifarious (adjective) (مختلف قسم کا): Many and of various types.
16. Nexus Between (phrase) (کے درمیان ملکرن): A connection or link between two things.
17. Robust (adjective) (مضبوط): Strong and healthy; vigorous.
18. Integrated Strategies (phrase) (متضمن ہدایتیں): Coordinated plans or methods that incorporate different elements or aspects.
19. Synergies (noun) (تعاون): The interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
20. Ecosystem Restoration (phrase) (ماحول کی بحالی): The process of repairing or rebuilding an ecosystem that has been damaged or destroyed.

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dawn.com

Climate resilience

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THE screening of development projects through the lens of climate resilience requires a paradigm shift in development planning and budgeting. The International Monetary Fund wants Pakistan to introduce this shift through the FY2024-25 budget. Prodding the ministries of finance and planning, the IMF has prescribed making budget documents more explicit on the nexus between the budget and climate-related action. It has put emphasis on advancing green budgeting, including budget tracking, publishing information on climate-related spending and aligning the next budget with climate change adaptation.

The overall mainstreaming of climate change in development planning involves myriad intricacies. Prioritising the most promising investments in the public sector with a strategic focus on addressing climate concerns requires a wise approach. This entails development planning and financial allocations to pre-empt climate woes through diligently designed adaptation and mitigation projects.

Last year’s floods inflicted losses and damage to the tune of $30 billion on Pakistan. A deeper scrutiny of the factors that triggered this devastation reveal climate-insensitive planning and misplaced priorities. The logical cure to perpetual disasters is removing the bugs from the development process that worsen the impact of extreme climatic factors. The latter can convert hazards into calamities, and removing developmental defects is a prerequisite for averting disasters and mitigating loss and damage.

Climate-sensitive budgeting and mainstreaming of climate change adaptation is often misconstrued as financial allocation for the relevant ministries and departments. In reality, the concept transcends budgets. International expert on climate change adaptation Richard Klein explains the concept as “the integration of policies and measures to address climate change into ongoing sectoral planning and management, so as to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of sectoral and development investments”.

Development projects must be made climate-proof.

This approach underscores the need for applying a climate lens to development projects. Sectoral policies should focus on adaptation that can be infused into sectoral plans and eventually trickle down to the project level. Applying climate filters at the project level requires an in-depth dissection of every development project with a climate knife and not just marking a perfunctory tick box in the PC-1 pro forma.

Another possibility could be to broaden the scope of the environmental impact assessment to climate impact assessment. This can climate-fence projects. The EIA is mandatory for large-scale, complex and environmentally sensitive projects but has been reduced to a ritualistic drill these days. The process has been trivialised to the extent of circumventing the EIA altogether or conducting it mid-course only to observe a formality. The environmental protection agencies have been rendered spineless. At times, they take a compromised position when projects involve special interests for powerful people.

Once the development process is made climate-proof, setting the right priorities is the next goalpost. Water conservation, disaster mitigation, resilient agriculture, efficient irrigation systems, reducing emissions in brown sectors, renewable energy sources, preventive public health systems, sanitation, storm drainage, and afforestation are some of the key priority areas of the investment portfolio. These sectors need integrated strategies to create synergies, with adaptation agendas in line with the Pakistan National Climate Resilience and Adaptation Plan 2023-2030.

A silver lining is that the glass is not half em­­pty. The Climate Public Expen­di­t­u­res and Institu­tional Review, 2017, for Pakis­tan shows that the country is already spending a sizeable proportion of its budget on sectors contributing to offsetting the impact of climate change. Nevertheless, a significant financial gap still persists as the average costs for annual adaptation to climate change have been estimated at $10.70bn per annum over the next 35 to 40 years.

The provincial governments have to lead from the front as all these subjects fall under their ambit. The provinces are equipped with locally contextualised climate change policies. Climate-sensitive planning and budgeting will have an enduring advantage for the provinces. A robust climate mitigation and adaptation plan will reduce their vulnerability to hydro-climatic disasters, and thus create fiscal space for other developmental needs that are often compromised due to climate-induced torments. Investment in such projects will have multifarious benefits, including disaster mitigation, ecosystem restoration, the greening of the economy and the creation of resilient communities.

The writer is a civil society professional.
[email protected]

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2023