Experts call for transparent use of climate funds in Pakistan

September 10, 2024

Experts at a workshop today called for transparent use of climate funds in Pakistan so that projects aimed at tackling climate change could be shored up successfully to safeguard people and the county.

Pakistan is ranked as the 5th most vulnerable country to climate change, as the country’s yearly climate change losses has reached $4 billion, said Kashif Ali, Executive Director, Transparency International Pakistan, while addressing the training workshop for journalists titled “Intersection of Climate Policy and Journalism: Empowering Journalists for Informed Reporting” organized by Green Media Initiative with support of Transparency International Pakistan at TIP office in Karachi.

He said that transparency in the use of climate funding was necessary. Mr Kashif said that 80% of crops were destroyed in Sindh in 2022 floods while 30 million people were affected. We should raise scope of training about mitigating climate change at the local level, he added.

Dr Muhammad Ali Sheikh, former Vice Chancellor of Sindh Madressatul Islam University, stressed the need to use Right to Information (RTI) for ethantic reporting. He said that information obtained from organizations without RTI could sometimes be wrong. The successful RTI use in Pakistan is needed to highlight and resolve several issues, including corruption and maladministration.

Ali said that government organisations should upload their information on their websites so that citizens, including journalists. could get information easily. He said that RTI use in Pakistan is very low due to lack of awareness about its importance. Citing an example, he said that RTI requests in Pakistan in a year had been recorded in some thousands as compared to India where 1.6 million RTIs were filed in the same period. He said that all journalists in the country should use RTI for robust reporting of issues, including those of climate change.

He said that Pakistan had crossed thresholds of 1.5°C and 2°C above the pre-industrial average global temperature, which is dangerous. The glaciers in the country are melting fast due to rising temperatures in the country. As a result, floods have hit the country hard. If the rising temperature are not controlled, there will be catastrophe, he added.

Shabina Faraz, chief of Green Media Initiative and an award-winning environmental journalist of Pakistan, said that she is the first woman journalist in Pakistan who introduced environment journalism in Urdu by writing in national and internal media outlets including BBC.

Shabina said that the Green Media Initiative, an GNO, had established a cohort of female environmental journalists selected from across the country to focus on climate change reporting and highlighting problems faced by women folk in the wake of climate disasters.

She said that the government and media is working in different ways, causing a gap, adding that to fill this gap, she had established four women environment journalism cohorts in all four provinces of Pakistan, including Sindh, Punjab, KP and Balochistan.

Shabina said that media outlets had become commercialized and their scope of environment reporting was not up to the mark. The journalists still don’t know about climate funding, which is necessary to know. She said women journalists should have knowledge about climate funds like Climate Loss and Damage Fund and Green Climate Fund.

Dr Uzma Shujaat, Board of Trustee, Transparency International, said that climate change threat issues are out now as those climate threats had hit the country in reality. This is time to combat climate change effectively. She said that in June, temperatures upto 50 degrees centigrade were recorded in Karachi, which were alarming.

Dr Uzma said that local governments were duty bound to help local people in climate-induced floods. “We are not proactive. We are reactive as actions are here taken after devastation comes in the country.”

Fariha Fatima, who presided over the session, said that Transparency International was working to raise awareness among communities to identify issues, including corruption. She said: “We work on how to make policy to end corruption. We are working with the government on climate climate governance. We provide assistance to climate change victims, says Fariha.