UNITED NATIONS: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has urged the international community to deliver on long-promised climate finance commitments, warning that debt-driven lending cannot rescue vulnerable countries like Pakistan from worsening climate catastrophes.
“Loans over loans, [and] adding to loans is not a solution,” the prime minister said while speaking at the Special Climate Event hosted by UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Brazil’s president, where member states were invited to present updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) with 2035 targets.
Pakistan’s climate scars
The prime minister reminded delegates that Pakistan was still reeling from the scars of the 2022 floods, which inflicted losses exceeding $30 billion and displaced millions.
“This year, intense monsoon rains, cloudbursts, flash floods and devastating urban flooding have impacted more than five million people, destroyed 4,100 villages, and claimed over 1,000 precious lives,” he added.
Highlighting Pakistan’s minimal contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, the prime minister said that despite negligible contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions, “We bear impacts far beyond our share”.
He added that in 2025 alone, heavy monsoon rains, flash floods and urban inundation had destroyed over 4,100 villages, displaced five million people and killed more than 1,000.
“Despite contributing negligibly to global emissions, we bear impacts far beyond our share,” he said.
Commitments and challenges
Sharif underlined Pakistan’s 2021 pledge of a 15 percent unconditional cut in projected greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 – a target he said the country has already met.
““Renewables are presently providing over 32% of Pakistan’s power mix. Solar energy has grown seven-fold since 2021,” the prime minister added.,” he noted, citing restoration of 23,000 hectares of mangroves as another achievement.
But he warned that Pakistan’s national adaptation plan faces severe hurdles due to inadequate international finance.
Path to 2035
Furthermore, he emphasized that 23,000 hectares of mangrove forests had been restored. “However, the implementation of Pakistan’s national adaptation plan is hampered and hampered severely due to inadequate international climate finance,” he regretted.
PM Shehbaz Sharif announced to increase the share of renewables and hydropower to 62% of the country’s energy mix by 2035,
expanding nuclear energy capacity by 1,200 megawatt by 2030, shifting 30% of transport to cleaner mobility by 2030, and establishing 3,000 charging stations nationwide, scaling up climate’s smart agriculture, safeguarding water security, and advancing the implantation of 1 billion trees.
UN chief: ‘Clean is competitive’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that it was still possible to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees by century’s end.
He told the gathering that clean energy was powering jobs, growth and sustainable development besides generating the fastest and cheapest electricity and insulating economies from volatile fossil fuel markets.
“The bottom-line: clean is competitive, and climate action is imperative,” he remarked.
He said that the Paris Agreement had made a difference as in the last 10 years and “now, we need new plans for 2035 that go much further, and much faster.”
The UN chief stressed that “COP30 in Brazil must conclude with a credible global response plan to get us on track and “show a credible path to mobilizing the $1.3 trillion annually in climate finance by 2035, as agreed at COP29 in Baku,” including identifying funding sources, making finance accessible, and ensuring accountability.
He also underlined that “developing countries that did least to cause the crisis are suffering most,” and called for “effective debt relief, and scaled-up solutions like debt swaps and disaster pause clauses.”
