Flood-prone Pakistan struggles for influence at UN climate talks

Saleem Shaikh and Sughra Tunio at the Thomson Reuters Foundation: Plagued by weak preparations, poor negotiating skills and inadequate political support for its delegation at the U.N. climate talks in Warsaw, Pakistan will struggle to press its case for much-needed support to deal with the impacts of climate change, experts say.

Although Pakistan has suffered climate-related losses and damage worth over $15 billion in the past few years, it has not played a leading role at global climate conferences like that taking place in Poland from Nov. 11-22, also known as COP19.

“It is really disappointing to see how Pakistani negotiators are ill-prepared with their climate vulnerability case for COP19, and how shy they are of putting forward their loss and damage case,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, chief executive of LEAD Pakistan, a non-governmental organisation working on climate mitigation and adaptation issues with community groups.

...Pakistan has sustained economic damage of more than $15 billion as a result of consecutive monsoon floods each year since 2010, governmental officials say. In addition, some 4,000 people were killed by flooding, thousands injured and millions displaced from their homes, according to the Economic Survey of Pakistan 2011-12....