Press Release
Public Talk
“Climate diplomacy“
The Centre for Strategic Perspectives (CSP) at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad (ISSI) organized a Public Talk on “Climate Diplomacy”. The guest speaker at the talk was Dr. Adil Najam, Inaugural Dean, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, and Boston University.
In his welcome remarks, Ambassador Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry Director General ISSI said that climate change is a serious threat, more than what the world recognizes and more is needed to be done to address this particular issue.
Dr. Adil Najam in his address said that Pakistan needs to take climate diplomacy differently, while there is no dearth of seriousness to this issue, however, Pakistan needs to take climate diplomacy moreas a strategic issue than any other. In his remarks Dr. Najam touched upon multiple issues and concerns regarding climate change and climate diplomacy. He was of the view that the world has largely failed to produce any agreement regardless of the multiple global conferences that that have taken place in the past. Climate is no longer a future issue and has become an everyday concern with constant human adaptation and Pakistan is no exception.It is an issue that has mostly affected the developing countries including Pakistan as approximatelya third of Pakistan population is facing challenges regarding climate adaptation primarily in the agricultural sector mostly because of water. He was of the view that countries like Pakistan which are more climatic, agriculture and water dependent, will have to bear the maximum cost of climate change, hence, the Pakistan has to change its efforts both nationally and internationally to address the issue diplomatically and make it a diplomatic cause. He went on to say that Pakistan as the head of the G-77 has the opportunity to lead the cause as G-77 has clout on multiple international forums if not all. Dr. Najam shed light on the failure of climate diplomacy and raised five main issues including failure to act on knowledge, failure of negotiations,failure of diplomacy, vulnerability failure, and failure of politics. Concluding his talk, Dr. Najam touched upon the failure of multilateralism, which became the biggest casualty of pandemic, an element that is also missing in addressing the issue of climate change.
Ambassador Aizaz Ahmed Chaudhry concluded the talk by thanking the speaker and the participants for attending the event.
