Climate Change Policy 2025

Islamabad:

The climate change debate in Pakistan revolves around fancy jargon, buzzwords and donor-driven policies. Whether you realize it or not, it has become fashionable to talk about climate change.

Government, civil society and think tanks have coined new slogans like “green transition”, “just green transition”, “electric vehicles for climate change” etc., to pretend they are serious about it.

However, more often than not, all efforts and feigned seriousness end up in fruitless self-promotion. Why? Because they couldn’t back up their conversations with concrete actions. The government has failed to design policies or actions according to reality.

For example, ground reality and situation analysis requires Pakistan to focus on agriculture, water and livelihoods to reduce its impact on ordinary citizens.

Agriculture is an important source of livelihood, the backbone of the economy and a leading factor in food security. However, it is extremely vulnerable to climatic effects such as floods and droughts. The number of days for cultivation is also decreasing and there are strong indications that cultivation patterns will change due to climate change. The availability and quality of water, which is essential for agriculture and human life, is threatened.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is playing a game of terminology. It focuses more on mitigation than adaptation. It is a shame that the most important issue, adaptation, is not receiving the attention it deserves from policymakers and civil society.

For example, analysis of past Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) shows that they focused more on mitigation than adaptation. NDCs have failed to recognize that adaptation must be a top priority.

Pakistan is extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change and its contribution to climate change is negligible. On the other hand, mitigation policies and actions have also been short-sighted, which has created multidimensional challenges for the country. The most typical example is the conversion of the transport system to CNG.

A few years ago, Pakistan started converting its transport system to CNG. The government was persuading people to switch to CNG as it would help save foreign exchange reserves. Pakistan has built a comprehensive infrastructure to support the initiative and has installed CNG stations across the country. Pakistan has presented it globally as a model for green transition.

However, Pakistan lost its enthusiasm after the gas shortage. It started moving away from the CNG transportation system and back to gasoline or diesel. Immature politics and the lack of a well-prepared plan of action has cost her and is still costing her on many fronts.

First, natural gas reserves began to deplete at an alarming rate. Over time, gas cargo dumping became a new normal and people began to agitate against the situation.

Second, Pakistan had to start importing LNG to bridge the gap between demand and supply. The argument of saving money and reducing the export bill was no longer valid. Third, household gas prices began to rise and affordability was challenged. This also challenged the money-saving and price-cutting argument over petrol or diesel.

Fourth, the business community faced the worst consequences. Private enterprise has built a massive infrastructure to support the transition. They built hundreds of CNG filling stations and also spent billions of rupees to set up CNG kits and cylinder manufacturing units to support the growing CNG transport sector. It’s in a fix now.

Fifth, Pakistan had to spend billions of dollars to import equipment, kits and cylinders. Sixth, individual consumers or vehicle owners also spent money to convert their vehicles to CNG. They hoped it would help them save money. It helped them initially, but the process backfired with the depletion of national reserves of CNG.

Seventh, stocks have been depleted and citizens have faced the consequences. Now, the government is unable to provide connections to homes. The situation is so bad that households in most elite sectors in Islamabad do not have gas connections.

Second, more recently, Pakistan has started blindly promoting solar energy without considering agreements with IPPs. It started the process of shifting government buildings to solar power and the parliament building sought to become the first solar-powered building.

Due to the activism of the think tanks, the government is facing the problem of payments to ODPs, as the solar installation reduces the revenue. The government has no choice but to raise electricity prices to cover the gap.

Moreover, household investment has not been able to deliver the benefits promised during the solar promotion. For example, solar installation was touted as reducing the electricity bill, but the government is reducing the savings by raising prices.

This policy heavily affects the poor and lower middle class. They don’t have the resources to install solar panels, but they have to pay inflated electricity bills.

Instead of learning from past failures or the negative consequences of poorly designed and implemented policies, Pakistan is blindly promoting electric vehicles without proper understanding of ground realities, needs assessment and policy.

Basic data tells us that more than 24.6% of the population still does not have an electricity connection. Second, Pakistan, which has 644 kWh of electricity consumption, ranks among the countries with the lowest per capita electricity consumption. This is due to low industrial development and business activities.

Third, 59% of electricity generation comes from fossil fuels, so what’s the point of generating electricity from fossil fuels and running EVs? Thus, electric vehicles can create the problem of the gap between supply and demand.

Therefore, many experts are expressing concerns that the government is trying to create another crisis like CNG. They suggest that before implementing the EV policy, Pakistan should analyze the reality and prepare a plan for implementation.

In conclusion, Pakistan can learn from past mistakes and enter 2025 with a new mindset and design a climate change agenda as needed. It should start with the formulation of a well-thought-out policy and an implementation framework according to reality.

A policy that recognizes Pakistan’s weaknesses such as economic crisis, per capita energy availability, poor policy choices and its strengths such as the potential of hydropower, coal, nuclear, etc. Second, adaptation must be a top priority and the government must make every effort to implement the national adaptation plan in its true spirit.

Third, the government should prepare its agenda by engaging indigenous wisdom and indigenous institutions, such as public universities, rather than donor-funded consultants. This agenda should then be communicated to the donor community and they should be asked if they want to work together to implement it.

Fourth, this does not mean that Pakistan should abandon mitigation. Instead, it should draw up a policy of mitigation and a framework for action. It will help continue the green transition, pave the way for the successful implementation of electric vehicle policy and help pursue a sustainable development path.

The author is a political economist and visiting researcher at Hebei University, China