Paving the way to COP27 for Just and Fair Climate Reparations for South Asia: Building a case on Pakistan Floods 2022

Date: 7^th October, Time: 11:30 to 1 pm (IST)

1. BACKGROUND

Climate change is no longer a distant phenomenon, it’s right here as we speak, impacting us in various forms and becoming more severe especially for vulnerable communities in the global south. The monstrous floods in Pakistan this summer led to inundation of about a third of the country. Massive Damage to food crops, livestock, loss of homes and loss of human lives all add up to making it a disaster of catastrophic proportions. The prolonged La Niña phenomenon enhanced due to global warming and excessive warming in the Arctic region potentially causing heat waves (in Pakistan + Northern India) and melting many of its 7,000 plus glaciers is clearly indicators that climate change is the main culprit to blame for this loss in Pakistan.

The rest of the South Asian region is no different (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka) together that account for only 3.5 % of world land mass inhabitants roughly one fourth of global population making South Asia one of the most densely populated regions across the globe. In terms of vulnerability to climate change as per The German watch Global Climate Risk index 2021 Pakistan is ranked 8^th in the list of Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI) ranking of extreme weather events b/w 2000-2019. The same report ranks India 7^th in the list of 10 most affected countries in 2019 due to climate change. On a scale of 1 to 100, Pakistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh together with sub-Saharan Africa takes the spot of most vulnerable region in the world to climate change.

South Asian region inhabitants second-highest number 33.4% and proportion of the world’s  poor; 649 million people in South Asia were moderately or severely food insecure and 271 million were severely food insecure , 36 percent of the children are stunted and nearly 16% were acutely malnourished; the challenge that we face today is of providing access to basic services like, water, food and shelter versus building climate resilience/coping capacity for poorest of poor, for them to face climate extremes; which have now clearly crossed the limits of response that mitigation and adaptive actions can provide. The devastation caused by climate change today upon the poorest and most vulnerable that cannot be reversed and therefore has to be compensated in a just, fair and transparent manner; clearly building a case for climate reparations and loss and damage finance.

“The Historic injustices have to be heard and there must be some level of climate equation so that the brunt of the irresponsible carbon consumption is not being laid on nations near the equator which are obviously unable to create resilient infrastructure on their own”

2. OBJECTIVE

• • To understand the risks and impacts of climate extremes from other south Asian nations (India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Srilanka): Knowledge sharing on resilience building that other countries are following in impacted areas.
  • Understand the need of loss and damage finance in South Asian countries with respect to vulnerability, in the light of the real cost of climate extremes on lives, livelihood, infrastructure and economy (a factual assessment of Loss and Damage from Pakistan).
  • To build a common South Asia Civil Society position on crucial UNFCCC negotiations issues (#loss damage finance facility).

3. FLOW OF DISCUSSION

Moderated by: Dr Hina Aslam, Research Fellow, SDPI, Pakistan

4. OUTCOME OF THIS WEBINAR

A joint media brief by CANSA as an outcome after this webinar to call CSOs in South Asia to support Loss Damage Finance facility out of COP 27.

5. REGISTRATION DETAILS

You are invited to a Zoom webinar.

When: Oct 7, 2022 11:30 PM Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi

Register in advance for this webinar: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_OI0bKJh4Tmi3_t2wc40iEw

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.