The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a $500 million policy-based loan to support climate change and disaster risk reduction and resilience in Pakistan, a statement from the bank said on Tuesday.

In 2022, massive floods triggered by climate change devastated several parts of Pakistan, killing 1,700 people, washing away swathes of agricultural land, affecting 33 million people, and incurring losses worth $30 billion, according to government estimates.

The Climate and Disaster Resilience Enhancement Programme (CDREP) will strengthen Pakistan’s institutional capacity for planning, preparedness, and response; increase inclusive investment in disaster risk reduction and climate resilience; and support the scale-up of disaster risk financing using a risk-layered approach, the statement said.

“Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change and disasters triggered by natural hazards in Asia and the Pacific. Average losses from disaster events exceed $2 billion per year.

“Women and other vulnerable groups are disproportionately affected by climate change and disaster events,” the statement said.

“This programme builds on ADB’s longstanding work in Pakistan to understand and reduce climate and disaster risks and support effective disaster response,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov.

“We are proud to support an integrated and comprehensive approach to climate and disaster risk management, including a portfolio of disaster risk financing instruments for timely and adequate funding for disaster response,” Zhukov was quoted as saying in the statement.

It added that the programme supports the enhanced capacity for disaster risk mapping and modelling for investment and development decisions, as well as enhances coordination for disaster monitoring and response. It also supports enhanced planning and prioritisation of gender-sensitive and resilient public investments, including integrated flood risk management and nature-based solutions.

The programme supports the mobilisation of climate finance from public and private sources. This includes the issuance of a domestic green sukuk (Islamic bond).

A key innovation of the program is the use of ADB’s Contingent Disaster Financing option for the first time in the Central and West Asia region. This will provide quick disbursing budget support in the event of a disaster.

The programme will also support the establishment of a solidarity fund to facilitate the uptake of risk transfer solutions such as agriculture insurance, while also backing shock-responsive social protection to deliver cash assistance in the event of a disaster, the statement added.

ADB has also approved a technical assistance grant of $1 million to support the implementation of the programme.

Tuesday’s announcement comes after the ADB announced in September that it will provide $2 billion in annual assistance to Pakistan over the next three years to support infrastructure development and climate-resilient initiatives.

A report by the Policy and Strategy Committee (PSC) and the Oversight Board on Post-Flood Reconstruction Activities showed last month that the country had only received $10.9bn from international development partners out of the total estimated loss for post-flood reconstruction work, leaving a $19.1bn shortfall that has halted the rehabilitation of flood-affected communities in three provinces.

ADB’s country partnership strategy, 2021–2025, for Pakistan, focuses on three priorities: improving economic management, building resilience, and boosting competitiveness and private sector development.

As of December 31, 2023, the bank has committed 755 public sector loans, grants, and technical assistance totalling $41.4bn to Pakistan. ADB’s current sovereign portfolio in Pakistan includes 55 loans and four grants worth $10.11bn.

Cumulative sovereign and nonsovereign loan and grant disbursements to Pakistan amount to $31.76bn.

These loans were financed by regular and concessional ordinary capital resources, the Asian Development Fund, and other special funds.

Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere reached new record highs in 2023, the UN warned on Monday, with countries falling “miles short” of what is needed to curb devastating global warming.
Levels of the three main greenhouse gases — heat-trapping carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — all increased yet again last year, said the World Meteorological Organization, the United Nation’s weather and climate agency.
Carbon dioxide was accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, up more than 10 percent in two decades, it added.
And a separate report by UN climate change found that barely a dent is being made in the 43 percent emissions cut needed by 2030 to avert the worst of global warming.
Action as it stands would only lead to a 2.6 percent reduction this decade from 2019 levels.
“The report’s findings are stark but not surprising — current national climate plans fall miles short of what’s needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country,” said UN climate chief Simon Stiell.
The two reports come just weeks before the United Nations COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, and as nations prepare to submit updated national climate plans in early 2025.
“Bolder” plans to slash the pollution that drives warming will now have to be drawn up, Stiell said, calling for the end of “the era of inadequacy”.
– ‘Alarm bells’ –
Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, countries agreed to cap global warming at “well below” two degrees Celsius above average levels measured between 1850 and 1900 — and 1.5C if possible.
But so far their actions have failed to meet that challenge.
Existing national commitments would see 51.5 billion tonnes of CO2 and its equivalent in other greenhouse gases emitted in 2030 — levels that would “guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception,” Stiell said.
As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will keep accumulating in the atmosphere, raising global temperatures, WMO said.
Last year, global temperatures on land and sea were the highest in records dating as far back as 1850, it added.
WMO chief Celeste Saulo said the world was “clearly off track” to meet the Paris Agreement goal, adding that record greenhouse gas concentrations “should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers”.
“CO2 is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than at any time during human existence,” the report said, adding that the current atmospheric CO2 level was 51 percent above that of the pre-industrial era.
– Sea levels 65 feet higher –
The last time the Earth experienced a comparable concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago, when the temperature was two to three Centigrade warmer and the sea level was 10 to 20 metres (65 feet) higher than now, it said.
Given how long CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, current temperature levels will continue for decades, even if emissions rapidly shrink to net zero.
In 2023, CO2 concentrations were at 420 parts per million (ppm), methane at 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide at 336 parts per billion.
CO2 accounts for about 64 percent of the warming effect on the climate.
Its annual increase of 2.3 ppm marked the 12th consecutive year with an increase greater than two ppm — a streak caused by “historically large fossil fuel CO2 emissions in the 2010s and 2020s”, the report said.
Just under half of CO2 emissions remain in the atmosphere, while the rest are absorbed by the ocean and land ecosystems.
Climate change itself could soon “cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases”, WMO deputy chief Ko Barret warned.
“Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming.
“These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society.”

Minister for Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb has invited Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to provide support in terms of program loan for dealing with the impacts of climate change and disaster preparedness.

He was talking to President of the Bank Jin Liqun in Washington.

The Minister also invited the Bank to invest in N-5 (GT Road) reconstruction project.

He acknowledged the Bank’s support to Pakistan, particularly in dealing with the aftermath of the devastating floods of 2022.

The Finance Minister mentioned his visit to China where he interacted with the management of Peoples Bank of China.

He said Pakistan wants to diversify its financing base and explore the possibility of issuing a panda bond with partial credit guarantee of AIIB.

Muhammad Aurangzeb said enlisting AIIB as an anchor to support the process would send out a strong signal to the market.

He expressed satisfaction over the progress of AIIB projects in Pakistan and emphasized further efforts to improve the disbursement of ongoing projects.

He Invited the President to visit Pakistan which he accepted.

Humanity is ‘paying a terrible price’ for inaction on global warming, with time running out to correct the course and avoid climate disaster, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said Thursday.
A new report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) says the next decade is critical in the fight against climate change or any hope of limiting global warming to 1.5C will be lost.
The current pace of climate action would result in a catastrophic 3.1 degrees Celsius of warming this century, UNEP said in its latest Emissions Gap report.
And even if all existing pledges to cut emissions were enacted as promised, global temperatures would soar 2.6C above pre-industrial levels — a still devastating scenario for humanity.
“Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster, with the poorest and most vulnerable suffering the most,” said Guterres.
“Around the world, people are paying a terrible price.”
The call to action follows a streak of destructive and deadly extreme weather and comes in a year expected to be the hottest in recorded history.
The world’s poorest have been particularly hard hit, with typhoons and heatwaves in Asia and the Caribbean, floods in Africa, and droughts and wildfires in Latin America.
Nations meeting at the COP29 climate summit next month in Azerbaijan hope to agree on increasing finance for the developing world to cope with climate change.
– ‘Out of time’ –
UNEP’s latest projections blow well past 1.5C, which nations agreed in Paris in 2015 was the safest bet to minimise the worst consequences of a warming planet.
That goal was “still technically possible”, UNEP said — but only with enormous reductions by 2035 in heat-trapping gases caused primarily by burning fossil fuels.
Rather than declining, emissions are still rising, hitting a new record high last year.
Guterres said the world was “playing with fire”.
“But there can be no more playing for time. We’re out of time,” he said.
Keeping 1.5C on track would require a collective effort “only ever seen ever seen following a global conflict”, UNEP said.
Without pulling together “on a scale and pace never seen before… the 1.5C goal will soon be dead,” said UNEP executive director Inger Andersen.
To have a hope of meeting 1.5C, emissions must be slashed 42 percent by 2030 and 57 percent by 2035, UNEP said.
The existing suite of climate commitments — including those contingent on outside financial help — would only cut expected 2030 emissions by 10 percent if implemented as promised.
“These reports are an historical litany of negligence from the world’s leaders to tackle the climate crisis with the urgency it demands, but it’s not too late to take corrective action,” said Tracy Carty from Greenpeace International.
– ‘Bridge the gap’ –
UNEP said advances in solar and wind, two proven and cost-effective technologies, could deliver a steep fall in emissions but investment in such carbon-cutting solutions needed to rise six-fold to meet 1.5C.
Guterres said wealthy nations of the G20 must lead the way.
“Either leaders bridge the emissions gap, or we plunge headlong into climate disaster,” he said.
The world’s 20 largest economies were responsible for nearly 80 percent of global emissions in 2023. The bottom 47 countries accounted for three percent.
The United States was historically the biggest polluter, accounting for 20 percent of global emissions since 1850, when the burning of fossil fuels for energy began in earnest.
The European Union and China accounted for 12 percent each, UNEP said.
A breach of 1.5C is increasingly being seen as inevitable by scientists and policymakers.
But a recent study found that even temporarily exceeding 1.5C before bringing warming back down — a scenario known as an ‘overshoot’ — could cause irreversible consequences for the planet.

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