Pakistan’s Economic Survey for 2013-2014 puts the annual cost of environmental degradation and climate change at Rs.365 billion (about US$3.76 billion), more than Rs.1 billion a day even at the most conservative estimate. Though this should have sent alarm bells ringing, the government’s response to the pressing challenges has been to earmark a paltry Rs.25 million (about US$353,000) for three small projects in the climate division.
Pakistan’s environment story could be one of numbers. While putting forward its estimate of Rs.365 billion, the Economic Survey, released by the Ministry of Finance in June, also states that some experts believe that the cost of environmental degradation is more than Rs.450 billion (US$4.5 billion), just a little less than the Rs.525 billion (US$5.41 billion) development budget for the fiscal year 2014-15.
Explaining the discrepancy in the two estimates, government officials said Rs.365 billion estimate was based on a 2006 study by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank. The Rs.450 billion figure is based on estimates by environmentalists who take into account the rising dollar and also additional incidents of environmental degradation.
Surprisingly, the Nawaz Sharif government seem oblivious to the problem – it allocated a mere Rs.25 million for two ongoing and one new development project in the climate change division and nothing for the environment sector.
The money will go towards emission reduction projects under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM); a Geometric Centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Development which focuses on environment technology; and monitoring Pakistan’s adherence to commitments made under international environment agreements.
These allocations were part of the public sector development programme. On June 3, when Finance Minister Ishaq Dar read out the budget speech over two hours in the National Assembly, environment and climate change drew a blank.
“It seems that the government is totally unserious about the serious challenge of environmental degradation and climate change despite highlighting its losses and implications,” said environmentalist Dr Pervaiz Amir, former advisor to the government of Pakistan.
Of the Rs.365 billion annual loss, Rs.112 billion (US$1.1 billion) is due to inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene. This is followed by Rs.70 billion ($723 million) from agriculture soil degradation, Rs.67 billion ($690 million) from indoor pollution and Rs.65 billion ($670 million) from air pollution amongst other categories.
Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal, responsible for the environment wing in the federal government, told the thethirdpole.net that a large chunk of the section had been devolved to the provinces. This resulted in growing challenges in implementing policies as there is lack of coordination between centre and provinces, he admitted.
He added that the federal government had tasked the ministry of inter-provincial coordination with developing better channels between Islamabad and the provinces on critical issues like environment and climate change. “We have included green economy as a key subject in our Vision 2025 and planning is under way to introduce some pilot projects in environment and climate change,” he said.
Experts say there are serious policy gaps because the domain of international protocols and agreements rests with the federal government but implementation is left to the provinces, which never follow directives.
Senior officials admitted, on condition of anonymity, that the devolution of the environment sector to provinces was a mistake that would have long term implications. Despite getting more funds under the new National Finance Commission, the provinces care little about the issues.
“The key missing link is that Pakistan has signed as many as 15 international protocols on environment and climate change, biodiversity, forestry and conservation, but there are difficulties while implementing them through provinces” said a senior official of the environment wing in Islamabad.
Some of the international agreements signed by Pakistan include the United Nations Convention on Desertification (UNCCD), the United Nations Framework on Climate Change ( UNFCC) and the United Nations Convention on Biodiversity (UNCBD).
According to Amir, the federal government should have introduced major projects in the environment and climate change sector with the allocation of major funds to mitigate the degradation, which is a constant challenge.
He said the federal government had abolished the climate change ministry and then cut the already meagre budget from Rs.58 million (about US$588,000) during 2013-14 to Rs.25 million now.
Citing the series of the monsoon flashfloods since 2010, he said climate change would create further havoc because of increased global warming and the absence of effective mitigation measures. “At present it seems neither the federal government nor the provincial authorities are giving these issues priority.”
“At present the government’s priorities at home is other sectors like energy, communication and poverty alleviation,” he added
The recently launched Thar Coal Power project and Islamabad-Rawalpindi Metro Bus project are amongst the ventures extracting a massive environment cost, say experts. The former, based in Sindh province, aims at producing 2,200 megawatts of electricity. The latter, which will connect the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpandi, was launched without the mandatory no objection certificate (NOC) from the Pak-Environmental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA). Some parliamentarians have approached the Supreme Court against the metro link.
Muhammad Khursheed, Pak-EPA director general, admitted that the environment was virtually blacked out by the federal government. “There will be serious environmental implications for Pakistan if policies for sustainable development are not mapped out…,” he warned.
He added that environmental degradation and climate change were part of the global agenda and Pakistan should rely on the assistance of international agencies, as countries like Nepal and Bangladesh were doing. Due to lack of administrative capacity, he admitted, Pakistan was unable to exploit the resources available with international agencies.
The UN Framework for Convention of Climate Change’s Green Development Fund could give the country funding for mitigation of the environmental degradation and climate change.
Nasir Gilani, chief of environment in the federal government, believes that environment and climate change need more regulation and governance rather than funding and the government was focusing on the job.
He said the government had earlier allocated billions of rupees for the environment and climate change but the money could not be spent properly because of inefficiency and lack of will.