The rich don’t care

Conscientious leaders from all over the world are currently in Baku, Azerbaijan to attend the 29th Conference of Parties (COP) – the United Nations’ largest annual climate conference that will run from November 11 to November 22 – to decide how they can save the earth from climate catastrophes. The last two conferences were quite disappointing for countries like Pakistan as they showed how uninterested rich nations were in funding developing countries affected by climate-induced apocalyptic events. While a climate fund was set up to allow the developed world to chip in funds for developing countries, there has been no mechanism to date that could help the affected nations rebuild themselves. Given this, it was good to see PM Shehbaz Sharif making a case for well-thought-out climate financing for developing countries that are most vulnerable to climate change. In 2022, right after the apocalyptic floods, Pakistan worked tirelessly to get several loan funds converted into grants. Now, the PM has said that a supportive funding mechanism will help the developing world reach its climate goals – Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) – even more efficiently and that achieving about half of these goals for climate-vulnerable countries could require up to $6.8 trillion by 2030.

News on the climate front is not great in any case. Glacial melting in Pakistan, for example, is a serious concern. On top of it, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), 2024 is on track to be hottest year on record as warming temporarily hits 1.5 degrees C. Recent floods in Spain, heatwaves in Greece, rains in the UAE, hurricanes in the US, etc, show that no country is safe from climate catastrophes. Unfortunately, the developed world does not seem to care about these threats that put entire humanity in danger. A recently released Oxfam report uncovers how the super-rich’s investments in polluting businesses and ventures are a big roadblock in countries’ commitment to protecting the environment. In its latest research, Oxfam finds that 50 of the world’s richest billionaires produce more carbon emissions in over an hour and a half than an average person does in a lifetime. This is not surprising at all given we all have reported on snarky remarks made by leaders from the oil industry when someone hints at the phasing-out of fossil fuels. Similarly, ‘experts’ sitting in international financial institutions are also quite dismissive of countries’ adoption of renewable energy to protect their investments in a fossil fuel-based power sector.

All of this has led to a point where every year, people’s investments and assets are damaged or permanently destroyed due to climate disasters. We have come to a point where breathing in oxygen has now become a luxury. See Lahore and parts of Punjab that are witnessing perhaps the worst case of smog. While the provincial government has announced school closures, its leaders have once again shown how little they care about the people. Several Punjab cabinet members, including the chief minister of Punjab, are currently out of the country for no reported formal work commitments. The optics are so bad that no amount of work could wash away the sense of betrayal the people of the province may now feel. This also reiterates the growing bridge between the super-rich and ordinary people. It shows how the rich can easily pack up and leave, saving themselves from the worse effects of climate change. Ordinary people cannot afford to do that, and so it makes it even more urgent for them, and for us, to demand world leaders they pay more attention to the environment. We have no bunkers, no space mission, and no vacation homes to go to.