Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari on Tuesday spoke with various foreign news channels and publications on the sidelines of the ongoing 27th Conference of Parties (COP27) in Sharm El-Shekh, Egypt.
In his elaborate discussion, he talked about the climate challenges in the context of the recent devastating floods in Pakistan.
Talking to CNBC, Bilawal estimated the cost of reconstruction in the destructed areas to $30 billion, adding that he was ‘cognizant of the difficult economic climate’.
He told the hosts of the channel that COP27 has been a success in the sense that finally, loss and damage [due to the floods and other climate disasters] have been added to the agenda.
I a separate conversation with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the foreign minister said, “there’s not going to be a planet for us to fight over’ unless climate crisis is solved.”
Highlighting that there is no international financial mechanism to address a catastrophe of this scale, he said he hoped that the ‘next country to be hit by a tragedy of this scale will have some sort of mechanism available’.
Previously in September, he had called upon industrialized nations to pay up for the harm caused by greenhouse gases. “What we seek is not charity, not alms, not aid — but justice,” The New York Times quoted the foreign minister as saying.
“Thirty three million Pakistanis today are paying in the form of their lives and their livelihoods for the industrialization of bigger countries,” he maintained.
Analysts fear that climatic changes due to global warming will be more catastrophic in the days to come, with Pakistan and other developing nations taking the worst hit, necessitating an equally effective response.
