Capacity Building Workshop for Journalists – Climate Governance & Journalism: Enhancing Informed Reporting and Oversight for Climate Action
Venue: Ramada Hotel, Multan, Punjab
Date: Thursday, September 26, 2024

Transparency International Pakistan organized a one day Capacity Building Workshop for Journalists on “Climate Governance & Journalism: Enhancing Informed Reporting and Oversight for Climate Action” on Thursday, September 26, 2024, at Ramada Hotel, Multan, Punjab. Around 28 journalists including 06 female, and 01 transgender from 17 climate vulnerable districts across Punjab province attended the workshop. The workshop aimed to enhance journalists’ understanding of climate change, equip them with skills to oversee transparency in climate action, and improve their reporting on climate frameworks and integrity in the utilization of climate finance.

The workshop commenced with the recitation of the Holy Quran. Ms. Nasreen Memon, Project Coordinator, Transparency International Pakistan opened the session with overview of Transparency International Pakistan and briefed on the objectives of the workshop. She said that the workshop aims to promote informed journalism that can hold authorities accountable, ensure transparency, and drive climate action.

Next, Mr. Badar Alam, CEO, Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development (PRIED) delivered a session on “Understanding Climate Change & Prioritizing Climate Action: Setting Priorities”. He highlighted that climate variability and change pose a substantial threat to agricultural practices and livelihoods in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Punjab’s agricultural sector is highly vulnerable to changing climate patterns, affecting food security. He explained the causes of climate change and highlighted recent climate disasters in Pakistan, including the heatwaves and flooding of 2022, as well as the pre-flood drought, landslides, and glacier collapse in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2023. In this context, he emphasized the importance of the Paris Agreement, adopted by 196 parties at COP21 in 2015, which is a legally binding treaty aimed at uniting nations to combat climate change and adapt to its impacts. The agreement seeks to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius while enhancing resilience, focusing on reducing emissions, mobilizing financial resources for developing countries, promoting technology transfer, establishing a transparency framework, and conducting regular assessments of progress. In line with these global efforts, Pakistan submitted its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) in 2021, which prioritize green jobs, vehicle electrification, and carbon sequestration.

In his second session on “Understanding Climate Reporting: Tools and Strategies for Impactful Reporting”, Mr. Badar Alam explained that accurate reporting can inform the public and shape public opinion, expose malpractices, track financial flows related to climate finance, carbon credits, and holding authorities accountable.

While highlighting the specialized tools, resources and data-driven approaches for creating impactful and in-depth climate reports, he said that climate data portals, academic journals and reports and partnering with NGOs and advocacy groups focused on climate action can enhance journalist capacity for climate reporting. He highlighted that limited resources, lack of specialized training, and political pressures can hinder thorough reporting in Pakistan.

After the tea break, Mr. Kashif Ali, Executive Director, TI Pakistan conducted a session on “Climate Governance Frameworks: How Journalists can Ensure Oversight for Transparent Climate Action”. He highlighted that Pakistan faces annual losses of $4 billion due to climate change. However, the allocation in the 2024-25 budget, approximately 15.3% of the Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) and around 8% of the government’s operational costs, falls short of what is needed to effectively address these impacts.

He explained Pakistan’s Public Finance Management (PFM) System and said that the commitments related to carbon emission reductions and the tracking of climate finance is crucial to ensure it is used transparently, with citizen participation in climate initiatives. He highlighted that green budget statements / citizen’s budget, results-based M&E system, strong whistleblower protection, preventing conflict of interest and due diligence and financial integrity are some tools to ensure transparency in climate action and journalists can produce in-depth reporting pieces by monitoring these tools.

Next, participants were involved in a group activity where they were divided into different groups. The groups worked on understanding climate terminologies and identifying mitigation, adaptation strategies and different types of climate finance.

Moving on, Mr. Syed Hussain Haider, Global Integrity Expert & Consultant offered his insights on “Advancing Integrity, Transparency and Accountability in Climate Action”. He highlighted the key challenges for climate action such as institutional and governance issues, infrastructure and implementation gaps, inconsistent climate policies, inadequate disaster preparedness and insufficient international funding.

He mentioned that the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) also addresses environmental corruption and climate action through key articles, including Article 9 (Public Procurement), Article 17 (Duty to Report), Article 22 (Protection of Whistleblowers), and Article 29 (Improper Use of Public Funds).

Mr. Haider said that journalists should emphasize on climate action strategies through their reporting such as clean energy transition, electrification of transportation, carbon pricing, sustainable land use, climate-resilient infrastructure and climate education and awareness. He stated that independent review mechanisms, monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) systems, whistleblower protection, and capacity building are essential accountability strategies. These measures are crucial for enabling journalists to effectively oversee climate action and climate finance.

Moving forward, Mr. Muhammad Shafiq, Assistant Registrar / AC (HR), Punjab Information Commission delivered a session on “Right to Information and its Application in Climate Finance”. He emphasized the importance of The Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013 as a tool for promoting transparency and accountability in climate finance. He discussed how journalists can leverage RTI to access crucial data on government budgets and project evaluations, empowering them to hold authorities accountable. He addressed challenges in implementing RTI and encouraged citizen engagement in monitoring climate initiatives.

Towards the end, Ms. Nasreen Memon, Project Coordinator at TI Pakistan, delivered the closing remarks, thanking the participants for their active engagement, followed by a certification ceremony.