Climate finance must be grant-based, not add to debt burden: PM

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called on the global community to honour its financial pledges to deal with the issue of climate change.

Addressing Climate Action Summit COP-29 in Baku on Wednesday, Shehbaz Sharif regretted that the financial commitments made at previous summits have yet to be fulfilled.

Prime Minister Shehbaz emphasized that climate finance must be grant-based and must not add to the debt burden of vulnerable developing countries.  He stressed that without climate justice, there can be no real resilience.

Highlighting the devastation caused by the 2022 floods in Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif pointed out that Pakistan is one of the countries that contributes less than half a percent of global emissions, yet it remains vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan is a resilient, hardworking and responsible nation, and that it is fully committed to be part of global climate solutions.

The prime minister said his government has taken concrete actions to deliver on its commitment of producing 60 percent of all energy from clean sources and shifting of 30 percent of its vehicles to EVs by the end of this decade.

Shehbaz Sharif said Pakistan is to go through a renewable energy revolution.

Last year, Pakistan presented a comprehensive national adaptation plan and this year, it has developed a national carbon market framework, he said.

Shehbaz, however, emphasized that Pakistan needs international support to deliver on its climate ambitions.

Leaders split on climate goals at COP29

Global leaders offered competing views on how to tackle climate change at UN-led talks Wednesday as a new report warned the world must reach carbon neutrality much sooner than planned.

Planet-warming carbon dioxide emissions from oil, gas and coal rose to a new record high this year, according to preliminary research from an international network of scientists at the Global Carbon Project.

The report came as leaders gathered in Azerbaijan for COP29 climate talks aimed at reaching a deal on boosting funding to help poorer nations adapt to climate shocks and transition to cleaner energy.

The research found that to keep the Paris agreement's ambitious goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in sight, the world would now need to reach net-zero CO2 emissions by the late 2030s -- instead of 2050.

The warning also follows concerns about the future of the fight against climate change following the election of Donald Trump.

Trump, who has vowed to again pull the United States out of the Paris agreement, named his head of the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday with a mandate to slash pollution regulations.

Some leaders in Baku defended fossil fuels during two days of speeches while others from countries plagued by climate disasters warned that they were running out of time.

- 'Slower' path -

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for a "realistic global outlook" on Wednesday, saying that world population growth will boost energy consumption demand.

"It is equally a priority that decarbonisation takes into consideration our production and social system's sustainability," she said.

"We must protect nature, with man at its core. An approach that is too ideological and not pragmatic on this matter risks taking us off the road to success," the far-right leader said.

"Currently there is no single alternative to fossil fuel supply."

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis called for a "smart" Green Deal, the European Union's ambitious climate plan which aims to make the bloc carbon-neutral by 2050.

"We cannot drive ourselves into industrial oblivion," the conservative leader said.

"We need to ask hard questions about a path that goes very fast, at the expense of our competitiveness, and a path that goes somewhat slower, but allows our industry to adapt and to thrive," he said.

Their views contrasted with leaders from countries beset by climate catastrophes and rising sea levels.

"Tuvalu sincerely hopes that this COP's concluding decisions will deliver a clear signal that the world is promptly phasing out fossil fuel," said the Pacific island's Prime Minister Feleti Penitala Teo.

"For Tuvalu and similarly placed countries, there is simply no time to waste," he said.

- Money fight -

As leaders spoke, negotiators released a fresh draft of a deal with a raft of options to raise funding for poorer countries, while leaving unresolved sticking points that have long delayed an agreement.

Most developing countries favour an annual commitment from wealthy countries of at least $1.3 trillion, according to the latest draft of the long-sought climate finance pact.

This figure is more than 10 times the $100 billion annually that a small pool of developed countries -- among them the US, the EU and Japan -- currently pay.

Some donors are reluctant to promise large new amounts of public money from their budgets at a time when they face economic and political pressure at home.

The prime minister of the hurricane-vulnerable Bahamas, Philip Davis, said small island nations have spent 18 times more on debt repayment than they have received in climate finance.

"The world has found the ability to finance wars, the ability to mobilise against pandemics," Davis said.

"Yet when it comes to addressing the most profound crisis of our time, the very survival of nations, where is that same ability?"–AFP