Pakistan’s contribution was one of the few bright spots at the recently concluded virtual Climate Ambition Summit. Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that two major coal projects would be scrapped and declared the country will have no more “power based on coal” but instead build more hydropower.
However, it became quickly apparent Khan’s statement will not affect the over 7,000 MW of coal power the country has recently built or is in the pipeline under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. The two coal power projects mentioned had already been scrapped because of an earlier moratorium on using imported coal.
There was a grim air at the summit, organised by Britain and France in partnership with Italy, Chile and the UN. The COP 26 president, UK Business Secretary Alok Sharma, reminded everyone that the world is still not on track to fulfil the 2015 Paris Agreement of limiting the warming of the globe to 2 degrees Celsius. But there was no sense of a breakthrough on the horizon.
China committed to increase the share of non-fossil fuel in primary energy consumption to around 25 per cent by 2030. India pushed back on demands to strengthen its Paris climate pledge, though it did promise to more than double its renewable energy target. Though rich nations have emitted almost all the greenhouse gases that are now in the atmosphere, they are still nowhere near to keeping their promise of paying poor nations to combat climate change.
