Pakistan’s third NDCs look to balance mitigation and adaptation goals • Official, experts call for alternative financing amid rich nation’s parsimony ISLAMABAD: As nations prepare their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to outline climate goals for the next five years through 2035, the absence of climate finance, particularly for the Global South, is a major hurdle in turning these ambitions into reality. NDCs are climate goals agreed upon at the Paris Climate Conference (COP21) in 2015. They are revised every five years. All the parties signatories to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) are supposed to step up climate action to keep global temperature below two degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times. The initial deadline for these goals was Feb 10, but the UN climate chief recently mentioned that the countries could submit these goals by September ahead of COP30 in Brazil. So far, only a handful of nations have submitted these goals. This will be the third iteration of Pakistan’s NDCs, with previous submissions in 2016 and 2021. In 2021, Pakistan pledged ambitious targets: reduction of greenhouse gases by 50 per cent, with 35pc reduction contingent on international finance. According to the Ministry of Climate Change, $200 billion is required to implement these NDCs, but the money has not trickled in. Only $4bn had materialised in international finance by 2021, it said. Not much information is publicly available about climate goals in the third round of NDCs. However, background discussions with experts and officials involved in the process of finalising NDCs revealed that much of the work has been done, including the evaluation of previous goals. The new climate goals would strike a balance between mitigation (decarbonisation) and adaptation (resilience). Prime Minister’s Coordinator on Climate Change Romina Khurshid Alam told Dawn that the ministry has taken all stakeholders, including even children, on board to prepare holistic climate commitments. When asked about missing the Feb 10 deadline for NDC submission, Ms Alam said finalising the goals was a complex, data-intensive process requiring rigorous studies and stakeholder engagement. The climate ministry is undertaking coordinated studies and consultations at national and provincial levels, aligning with global best practices, the PM’s climate aide said while playing down the delay in the completion of NDCs. Experts have also said the delay was not much of a concern, as many countries have missed deadlines for NDC submission in the past. “To do the needful, compiling and collating data and taking provinces on board was a time-consuming process that might have contributed to delay,” said Dr Abid Suleri, the executive director of Sustainable Development Policy Institute. He added that countries like Iran, Libya, and Venezuela “have consistently lagged in submissions due to political or economic crises”. Cash crunch Pakistan’s NDCs in 2021 were termed “overly ambitious” and the next iteration is expected to scale up climate action further. However, there is no money to translate these climate pledges into action. The COP29 in Baku last year had finance as its primary agenda, but after two weeks of intense negotiations, the finance goal agreed to help developing countries meet climate pledges was $300bn every year by 2035 — $1tr less than assessments made by independent organisations, including the UN. At the Breathe Pakistan International Climate Change Conference organised by DawnMedia in Islamabad last month, experts deliberated upon climate finance. During the conference, Valerie Hickey, World Bank climate chief, called for public and private sector reforms to spur climate finance. She cautioned that there was not enough money in the world for climate finance without reforms and mobilisation of the private sector. In a separate interview with Dawn, the World Bank director said public financing was a small pot of money that should act as a catalyst to transition towards green economies. The inability of rich nations to pay for climate change has prompted countries like Pakistan to advocate regional approaches. Ms Alam said she advocated for regional approaches at the Breathe Pakistan conference, as well as at COP29 in Baku. She said the countries most affected by climate change could share technological and other support in the spirit of South-South solidarity. She said in the absence of help from the rich nations historically responsible for emissions, the developing world can focus on regional solutions to foster collaboration, such as their own climate risk pool. The absence of public finance for developing countries has also been pointed out by civil society time and again. In response to Dawn’s queries, Tasneem Essop, the executive director of Climate Action Network International, said developing countries would need “robust, grants-based public funding to deliver real additional climate ambition”. Besides money, political will also plays a key role in climate action. Dr Suleri argued that all countries must take ownership of their NDCs to spur climate action. “…[T]he work does not end merely at preparing and submitting the NDCs to UNFCCC. An equally important aspect is to create ownership of those NDCs across different government policies and working towards them in public-private partnerships,” he noted. Published in Dawn, March 10th, 2025