PIIA Conference on Climate Change

There is more glacial ice in Pakistan than anywhere on Earth but the glaciers are melting and Pakistan is considered to be the seventh most vulnerable country in the world in respect of climate change …

The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs is holding a Conference on Climate Change: An Existential Challenge for Pakistan on 3 and 4 May 2019. The full programme is available below. The agenda of the conference is divided into technical and non-technical sessions. Scholars and specialists from concerned organizations will discuss the life threatening challenges faced by Pakistan in detail. Across the world, increasingly dangerous weather patterns and devastating storms have put an end to the long running debate on whether or not climate change is real. World leaders, climate experts, industrialists, and concerned citizens have realized that climate change is life threatening. Developing countries which are the least responsible for emitting greenhouse gases are caught in its trap. Overall, climate change is a challenge to Pakistan which is considered the seventh most vulnerable country.

It is faced with water shortages, melting glaciers, droughts, floods, sea-intrusion and heat waves which have substantially altered the pattern of life in both rural and urban areas. With a rapidly growing population, climate change is also threatening food security, along with agriculture ― the backbone of our economy ― in the arid and semi-arid regions. Considered as a non-traditional security threat, climate change poses a risk to peace and security of the country. Experts estimate that since the 1960s, the mean temperature in Pakistan have risen by 0.35°C at a steady average rate of 0.07°C per decade. There is an expected increase in temperature between 1.4°C and 3.7°C by the end of the 2060s. Droughts are estimated to occur every 16 years.

There is more glacial ice in Pakistan than anywhere on Earth but the glaciers are melting and over the last more than 30 years the snowline has receded by over 1.1 kilometers. By 2050, sea water intrusion will result in the loss of 0.79% of the Indus Delta population while 2.73% of the Delta area will be potentially lost. The energy sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Pakistan started off as a water rich country but 72 years later it is one of the most water stressed countries of the world.

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Foreign forces are to blame for Afghan conflict: Rustam Shah Mohmand

Former Ambassador to Afghanistan urges Pakistan to shift focus away from India.“The India-centric approach will have to be reviewed because it doesn’t deliver much” he said. Watch Video

PIIA recently held a talk on the Afghan conflict and this is Peerzada Salman’s news report of our event from Dawn. He said there is only one reason for the Afghan conflict: foreign forces. And if Pakistan and Afghanistan are to have good relations for a lasting peace in Afghanistan, Pakistan has to review its India-centric policy. This was the point that Rustam Shah Mohmand, former ambassador of Pakistan to Afghanistan, gave significant emphasis to during his talk titled The Afghanistan conflict: emerging dynamics and impact on Pakistan at The Pakistan Institute of International Affairs (PIIA) on Wednesday evening. Mr Mohmand said what he was about to say might not be liked by some people. He then gave a robust historic perspective on the Afghan issue by asserting that most conflicts in the world were unnecessary, underlining that the country faced British imperialism in the 19th century, Russian invasion in the 20th century and US invasion in the 21st century.

Mr Mohmand said there were many theories about the 9/11 incident (who carried out the attacks and whether any Afghan was involved) that made the US invade Afghanistan. In 2001, the attack was launched and seven or eight months later President Bush announced that Afghanistan had been liberated, and “the liberation continues”. During the invasion unspeakable crimes against humanity were perpetrated. Taliban supporters were arrested, and 3,000 people (mostly innocent) were choked to death in containers. More than 200,000 civilians had been killed, villages decimated and markets blown up chasing invisible and visible enemy. Mr Mohmand asked: “What has the war delivered?” Ninety per cent of Afghanistan’s GDP comes from either foreign funding or spending by coalition forces inside the country. Domestic revenue is five to seven per cent of the GDP. Malnutrition in children is 39pc and unemployment is 45pc.

FATF: Where does Pakistan stand?

The Pakistani delegation in Paris received messages that India had asked other member states to put Pakistan on the blacklist.

Pakistan made a high-level political promise earlier in 2018 to work closely with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and APG to improve its Anti-Money Laundering/Combating Financing Terrorism (AML/CFT) policies and to cater to its strategic counter terrorist financing-related weaknesses. Steps were taken in order to operationalize the combined database for its currencies enunciation regime, as acknowledged by the FATF at a meeting earlier this February. The statement however concluded that Pakistan needed to meet the expectations of the action plan by May 2019 in order to be de-listed from the FATF’s ‘grey list’. Pakistani officials were surprised as they had been under the impression that the FATF had been appreciative of the steps that had been taken place in January as per requirement by the FATF and AML/CFT. Pakistan needs to address its geopolitical ‘deficiencies’ to be able to qualify for a de-listing.

Some of these ‘deficiencies’ include the understanding of the threat posed by terrorist groups like the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Falah-i-Insaniyat and that ‘authorities are identifying cash couriers and enforcing controls on illicit movement of currency.’ Further demotion from the ‘grey-list’ could hinder Pakistan’s foreign investment and deter the access to international markets as Pakistan is already deeply infested in a financial crisis. India pressed Pakistan to make public the measures taken against terrorist organizations to which Pakistan replied saying that it was up to them whether or not to publicize actions taken against these groups and that it would not kneel down to pressure from India. A country being labeled a ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ should not be an instrument used in order to halt terrorist activity; it is a very burdensome label to put upon a state struggling to save its own citizens from the threat terrorist organizations have posed for decades.

‘China sees CPEC as a way of creating free market’ says leading specialist

South Asia expert from Oxford University thinks that CPEC will have a positive effect on Pakistan but certainly not a transformative one. 

As reported recently in the New York Times, Trump’s isolation of Pakistan means that China will play an even greater role in our country’s future. In addition to economic development, it is now the case that the previously peaceful objectives of CPEC are duly shifting towards military cooperation involving “defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets.” It is possible to attack the Chinese-Pakistani partnership and label Pakistan a “guinea pig” for Chinese experiments, but the expansion of ties will also empower Pakistan against the increasing menace posed by mad Modi and his acolytes. The showcasing of Chinese military technology will be accompanied by Pakistan playing a key civilian and military role in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system, a prime part of the Belt and Road Plan considered to be the “information Silk Road”, which Beijing hopes to sell to all Belt and Road countries. In these rather interesting times, Professor Matthew McCartney, and specialist in development in South Asia, addressed the members of the PIIA on 31 March 2019. News reports are available below. Watch video. 

From Dawn: “Eight years ago when I had entered the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford, the focus there was on India but today our focus is truly on South Asia where the study on India is not possible without knowing about Pakistan,” said Professor Dr Matthew McCartney at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on Saturday. Dr McCartney, who teaches political economy and human development of South Asia at Oxford University, was speaking on the subject of ‘China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: Sustainable Economic Growth and Industrial Policy in Contemporary Pakistan’