PM Shehbaz to visit Baku tomorrow to attend Climate Action Summit
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif will visit Baku, Azerbaijan, on Tuesday to participate in the two-day World Leaders Climate Action Summit being held as part of the 29th UN Climate Change Conference, also called COP29, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.
Hosted by the Azerbaijani Presidency, the World Leaders Climate Action Summit will convene world leaders to present national statements on how they are advancing the Paris Agreement on climate change. During the event, the Presidency will co-host a methane and non-carbon dioxide (non-CO2) greenhouse gas (GHG) summit with the US and China.
The PM will make a robust call for climate solidarity and climate justice based on the established principles of equity.
Earlier, PM’s Coordinator on Climate Change Romina Khurshid Alam and the secretary of the climate change ministry met with the former president of Maldives Muhammad Nasheed who visited the Pakistan pavilion at COP29 in Baku, the Ministry of Climate Change posted on X,
In another post, it said: “At #COP29, Pakistan’s delegation will emphasise stronger commitments to climate finance and adaptation. With unprecedented climate impacts, the time for bold action is now.”
Pakistan is ranked among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable countries, facing increasingly frequent and severe weather events, such as unprecedented floods, intense monsoon rains, devastating heat waves, rapid glacial melting and glacial lake outburst floods.
In June 2024, a heat wave brought record-high temperatures, severely impacting public health and agriculture.
In 2022, the country witnessed the worst floods in its history, induced by climate change, that led to massive devastation. As a result, 1,700 lives were lost, 33 million people were affected, swathes of agricultural land were washed away, while the damage incurred losses worth $30 billion, according to government estimates.