SUMMARY of the Article “Climate Resolutions 2025,” Dawn, January 2nd, 2025
The article outlines strategic climate and economic opportunities for Pakistan in 2025, emphasizing the need to integrate climate action into national policies. The year presents a chance for Pakistan to align its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and five-year economic plans with climate goals. The country must address its credibility gap by fulfilling commitments to international climate agreements. The revival of five-year plans, including the 13th Economic Development Plan and the third NDC, is crucial. These plans should guide synchronized sectoral policies developed after the 18th Constitutional Amendment. Tools like climate-proofed public investment plans, budget-tagging for climate spending, and registries for emissions trading are essential for effective climate action. The article highlights filling the credibility gap in NDC implementation by adopting realistic targets, involving provinces in planning, and ensuring adequate funding. Pakistan must also diversify financial resources by leveraging international climate finance, initiating carbon taxes, and encouraging private sector investments. Lastly, empowered local governments are critical to addressing community-level climate vulnerabilities, ensuring equitable development, and reducing maladaptation risks. All investments must focus on achieving climate resilience and sustainable economic growth.
Easy/Short SUMMARY:
The article emphasizes Pakistan’s need to align climate action with economic plans in 2025. It highlights the importance of implementing realistic Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), synchronizing policies, and improving financial tools like budget-tagging and emissions trading. Empowered local governments are vital for tackling climate challenges at the community level. Pakistan must diversify funding sources and focus on sustainable development to ensure a resilient future.
SOLUTIONS of The Problem:
1. Align Climate and Economic Plans
Ensure NDCs are fully integrated into the five-year plans and national economic goals for coherence and efficiency.
2. Improve Credibility and Accountability
Address unrealistic assumptions in the NDCs and involve provinces in planning to ensure practical implementation.
3. Develop Climate-Smart Tools
- Finalize climate-proofed PC-1 to PC-V for public sector investments.
- Use budget-tagging to monitor climate spending.
- Enhance digital registries for emissions trading.
4. Diversify Climate Financing
- Apply for funds like Green Climate and Adaptation funds.
- Introduce carbon taxes and levies.
- Encourage private sector investments in climate adaptation.
5. Strengthen Local Governments
Empower LGs to address climate challenges at the grassroots level, ensuring equitable development and disaster preparedness.
6. Engage Stakeholders
Collaborate with all sectors, including provincial governments and private entities, for integrated climate action.
7. Leverage International Support
Seek direct access to international climate funds and partnerships to enhance financial capacity for climate projects.
8. Promote Public Awareness
Educate citizens and businesses about the importance of climate-resilient development and their roles in achieving it.
9. Address Maladaptation Risks
Avoid top-down planning that leads to inefficiencies and focus on grassroots solutions for sustainable outcomes.
10. Monitor and Revise Policies
Regularly evaluate progress and adjust policies to meet climate and development goals effectively.
IMPORTANT Facts and Figures Given in the Article:
- Pakistan will release the 13th Economic Development Plan and the third NDC in 2025.
- Almost 60 sectoral policies need alignment with these plans.
- New tools like climate-proofed PC-1 to PC-V and budget-tagging are under development.
- The national climate finance strategy was launched in Baku in December 2024.
- Pakistan’s share of international climate finance is significantly low.
- Local government empowerment is critical to addressing community-level climate impacts.
MCQs from the Article:
1. What are the key plans Pakistan will release in 2025?
A. Vision 2040 and Vision 2050
B. The 12th Economic Development Plan and second NDC
C. The 13th Economic Development Plan and third NDC
D. None of the above
2. What is a major reason for the credibility gap in Pakistan’s climate action?
A. Lack of government interest
B. Overambitious targets and unrealistic assumptions
C. Inadequate implementation plans and funding
D. Limited international cooperation
3. What does budget-tagging aim to achieve?
A. Increase tax revenue
B. Simplify financial audits
C. Track and trace climate-related spending
D. Monitor international funding
4. Which city hosted the launch of Pakistan’s national climate finance strategy in 2024?
A. Islamabad
B. Baku
C. Paris
D. Dubai
5. What is essential for addressing local climate challenges?
A. International funding
B. Enhanced technology
C. Empowered local governments
D. Centralized decision-making
VOCABULARY:
- Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) (noun): A country’s plan for reducing emissions under the Paris Agreement.
- Credibility Gap (noun): The difference between what is promised and what is delivered.
- Hiatus (noun) (وقفہ): A pause or gap in a sequence or activity.
- Climate-Proofing (verb): Modifying systems to withstand climate-related risks.
- Taxonomy (noun): A classification system.
- Maladaptation (noun): Actions taken to address climate issues that result in negative impacts.
- Absorptive Capacity (noun): The ability to utilize resources effectively.
- Elite Capture (noun): A situation where resources meant for public benefit are monopolized by a few.
- Resilience (noun): The ability to recover from difficulties.
- Synchronize (verb): To operate simultaneously or in harmony.
- Vacillate (verb): To waver between different options or actions.
- Biodiversity (noun): Variety of plant and animal life in a particular habitat.
- Registry (noun): An official list or database.
- Subsidy (noun): Financial assistance provided to reduce the cost of goods or services.
- Carbon Off-Set (noun): A reduction in emissions to compensate for emissions produced elsewhere.
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Climate resolutions 2025
2025 will be a year of new openings and possibilities for Pakistan. Several initiatives started during the outgoing year will approach completion and offer opportunities to integrate economic and climate priorities. For Pakistan, economic and climate vulnerabilities reinforce each other and hence they must be addressed simultaneously. We will learn from our constraints while building upon our commitments and national resolve to strengthen our climate action. In 2025, we will have a chance to demonstrate our political will.
During this year, we will have the opportunity to make our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and other sectoral policies climate-resilient by aligning them with our five-year plans. We will begin to implement some of the new tools and instruments to accelerate climate action. We will address the credibility gap by becoming good at doing what we say we would do, and honour our commitments to our lenders and to the global community under climate agreements. We will move to consolidate democracy by electing and allowing local governments (LGs) to function and make way for addressing resilience for our communities.
Here are five strategic opportunities we will need to seize during the year.
Realigning policy priorities: In 2025, Pakistan will release two five-year plans: the 13th Economic Development Plan and the third NDC. It is essential that the NDC is fully aligned with, and gets its legitimacy from, the five-year plan, lest they work at cross purposes.
Five strategic opportunities will need to be seized during the year.
Because of the 18th Constitutional Amendment (2010) and the preoccupation with macroeconomic indicators under various IMF programmes since 2013, the five-year economic planning has lost its centrality in the country’s economic planning. Now that it is being revived after a hiatus of over a decade, it should serve as the north star for economic planning and climate actions. Neither Pakistan’s global commitments under the Paris Agreement nor the targets committed in the NDC have found space in the draft five-year plan. The NDC hangs in the air as it is not anchored in the quintessential provincial climate planning documents.
Almost 60 sectoral policies developed in the country after the 18th Amendment in absence of the five-year plans will need to be revised and synchronised with the 13th Economic Development Plan as well as the IMF’s Extended Fund Facility and the climate targets set in the NDC.
Clearly, the chief economist’s office at the Planning Commission has no climate or environmental economists, nor is there any provision for them to reflect on Pakistan’s international obligations under climate, biodiversity, and desertification conventions and about 30 environmental, trade and climate agreements and protocols.
Embedding climate action in policy instruments: Pakistan has just commenced developing tools and systems to enable climate-smart policy planning. The planning ministry climate-proofed PC-1 to PC-V for climate-risk screening of public sector investments in 2024. Its implementation will, hopefully, commence this year under IMF checklists.
The finance ministry is working to complete budget-tagging to track and trace climate spending. The auditor general is beginning to revise charts of accounts for climate-smart budgeting. Likewise, the State Bank is expected to complete taxonomy for centralised digital registry that aims to create standardised digital identities and unique identifiers for all entities to improve financial integration, regulatory oversight, and coordination.
The work on such new tools has been in progress for some time, but there is a renewed push for their completion this year. Once done, attention will shift towards the provinces where the development-climate nexus actually exists.
Filling the credibility gap: The NDC is Pakistan’s foremost climate action plan. Its five-yearly revision is due for submission to the UNFCCC secretariat. This revision offers an opportunity to rectify credibility gaps on several scores, such as projected economic growth rate and the accompanying rate of increase in carbon emissions as well as the projected carbon off-sets by the 10-billion tree project. These assumptions are unrealistic and lack scientific basis. Instead of earnestly accepting these factors, some bureaucrats are arguing for downward revision of existing NDC targets. This will widen the credibility gap and weaken the case for accessing international climate finance.
Equally serious, no attempts were made to implement the NDC 2.0 by developing action plans with the provinces and budgetary estimates for its implementation or aligning with annual PSDPs. It would be wrong to say that Pakistan’s targets were overly ambitious. The fact is that the policies vacillated, the implementation plan was not developed, nor was it costed, nor was the division of responsibilities agreed with the provinces, resulting in a damaging action gap. The next plan for 2025-2030 will need to set a higher integrity bar to fill the credibility gap.
Diversify financial resources: Pakistan’s share of international climate finance is abysmally low. In 2025, Pakistan can begin to implement its national climate finance strategy launched by the finance minister last month in Baku, by undertaking some foundational work: apply for direct access to UNFCCC supported funds (Green Climate, Adaptation, and Loss and Damage funds); climate-proof subsidies; initiate carbon taxes and levies; incentivise the domestic private sector to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation; and develop registries for emissions trading to unleash the domestic carbon trading market.
These actions will help Pakistan leverage foreign direct investment, public-private partnerships, and international climate finance.
Stop bleeding: The economic costs of climate-triggered disasters are highest at the local level. For community-level planning and climate responses, we must create space for well-functioning and empowered LGs.
There is no better ambition than strengthening LG institutions for climate resilience and sustainable economic growth that engages the youth population, women, and marginalised sections of society.
Top-down planning and investments by PSDP often fails, resulting in maladaptation rather than adaptation and resilience. It constrains the spending and absorptive capacities, resulting in delays, pilferage and elite capture, weakening democratic dispensation.
For Pakistan, the primary resolution for 2025 is to consider all investments in development as investments in climate-resilient development and all finance as climate finance.
The writer is an Islamabad-based climate change and sustainable development expert.
Published in Dawn, January 2nd, 2025
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