ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb on Saturday urged reforms to global climate-finance mechanisms, saying the Green Climate Fund was mired in “bureaucracy” and the Loss and Damage Fund had made little progress since its launch four years ago.
Pakistan is among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, grappling with recurrent floods, heatwaves and rising adaptation costs that far exceed its domestic resources. The minister took up these issues while delivering his remarks via video link to COP30 in Belém, Brazil, where governments are debating climate finance, loss-and-damage funding and support for developing states facing mounting climate impacts.
“The Green Climate Fund, I do think we need to bring down the level of bureaucracy, both in terms of accreditation and the processes which can be simplified, and also with respect to disbursements and the Loss and Damage Fund,” he said in his virtual address.
The former is the UN’s main financing vehicle for developing countries to cut emissions and adapt to climate impacts, while the latter, created at COP27 in Egypt, aims to support vulnerable states facing climate losses they cannot avert or adapt to.
“I’m sure this is a big point of discussion in Belém,” he added. “It was Sharm El Sheik, where this, the whole discussion came up, and four years later, it [the Loss and Damage Fund] is still being operationalized. So, we need to think through all of this as international community as we go forward.”
