Flood-hit Pakistan seeks priority access to climate change aid

By Rina Saeed Khan, AlertNet correspondent
28 Sep 2010 12:29:00 GMT ISLAMABAD (AlertNet) – As Pakistan struggles to recover from recent devastating floods, it is pushing for recognition in U.N. climate negotiations as one of those nations judged to be most vulnerable to climate change and in need of funding to cope. This summer’s flooding, caused by unprecedented monsoon rainfall, has drawn international attention to the damaging effects of climate change in the region, with the United Nations describing it as the world’s worst humanitarian disaster in recent years. “Climate change, with all its severity and unpredictability, has become a reality for 170 million Pakistanis. The present situation in Pakistan reconfirms our extreme vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureishi told the U.N. General Assembly in September. He said the crisis strengthened the case for “a fair and equitable outcome” from talks on a new deal to tackle global warming, inching along under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Within that process, pressure is growing for a wider definition of countries that are regarded as “particularly vulnerable” to climate change – currently confined to the world’s least developed nations, small island developing states threatened by rising sea levels, and African countries affected by floods and droughts. This excludes a number of developing countries like Pakistan, which are proposing a redefinition on the grounds they are also likely to be hit hard by global warming. …