Pakistan needs lifeline for managing predictability of survival amid climate polycrisis: Sherry Rehman.

ISLAMABAD -- Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman on Monday said Pakistan needed to create the much-needed lifeline that will help Pakistanis manage predictability for basic survival amid unprecedented climate crisis which was the only way to confront the polycrisis hitting the nation.

Addressing the first plenary at the global Climate Resilient Pakistan Conference held in Geneva, the Minister was flanked by Finance and Revenue Minister Senator Ishaq Dar, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Prof Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Economic Affaris Division Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner and Vice President South Asia Region, World Bank, Martin Raiser.

Senator Rehman said, 'the world 'polycrisis' which is a new word for the 21st century as the challenges faced by the century are entirely new.'

She added that Pakistan was at the frontline of the extreme climate precipice. 'We do appreciate all partners, the UNDP, entire UN system, all development partners, international non-governmental organisations (INGOS) and Pakistani NGOs as all had their sleeves rolled up and gumboots on the ground.

She mentioned that as many of the present had heard that Pakistanis were a resilient nation but, as projected in the video at the forum, the peril for Pakistan is not over. 'Some eight million people still living in inundated areas particularly in the province of Sindh and a homeless winter for many, now 20 million are still affected which is again three times more than the size of many countries.'

She noted that it was a new tidal wave of disasters that were besetting the world, adding, 'We need to be very clear. They will not go away by themselves and the countries who are facing such frontlines, the ground zero as I called it of climate stress, will not recover on their own.'

She emphasised that there was no default setting to nature or human recovery at this scale. 'You have seen as the water ripped through one third of Pakistan, the magnitude and velocity as it was pulling out huge bridges built back better like toothpicks in its fury. So, building-back-better is going to be harder than we planned for and harder than we imagined.'

The Minister underlined that the 2010 flood was a great flood and called 'the Super Floods of Pakistan' which had affected...