Enhancing and Enabling Climate Ambition for SLCP Management in Pakistan

Rationale

South Asia is one of the most susceptible regions to air pollution. In addition, indoor air pollution in the region is substantially higher than the rest of the world, with more than 60% population exposed to indoor air pollution.

Overall air pollution in the region is resulting in changes to weather patterns including rainfall and heatwaves, with women and old people are significantly impacted by indoor and outdoor air pollution. Air pollution in Pakistan is attributed to around 128,000 premature deaths each year.

One of the major sources for air pollution in Pakistan is widespread crop residue burning which releases around 1.9 million tonnes of CO2-equivalent emissions each year.

Under this project, the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) will support Pakistan to identify short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) mitigation actions that will maximise climate and clean air benefits.

The project will strengthen the capacity of national partners through training on the use of the LEAP-IBC tool to develop an analysis and assisting with an evaluation of mitigation actions at the national and provincial scale.   

Building on current SLCP work in Pakistan, this project aims to undertake various assessments at subnational levels to articulate coherent provincial action plans for the abatement of short-lived climate pollutants. 

The first phase of CCAC's Pakistan work covered black carbon baselining, and this project will continue by developing an effective coordination, reporting, and monitoring mechanism between the provinces to ensure a coordinated approach to SLCP mitigation and climate adaptation.

Institutional arrangements can also be barriers to integrating measures for SLCP abatement into government decision-making. The diverse and cross-cutting sectors that need to be involved often fall under different ministries and government agencies, and institutional arrangements and policies on climate and air pollution need to identify this overlap in order to be effective. A whole-of-government approach is needed to allow ministries of environment, agriculture, and public health to work together in drawing up a comprehensive cross-sectoral strategy for SLCP abatement.

This project will be the first step towards declaring Pakistan’s ambition on SLCP abatement in its next NDCs and beyond. This project aims to scope out the sector for efficient action and reduction plans in close consultation and coordination with provincial stakeholders who will be directly responsible for effectively implementing Pakistan’s national targets for SLCP mitigation.

Objectives

  • Develop action plans to reduce SLCPs and air pollutants 
  • Improve capacity of government entities across 4 provinces  
  • Build on Phase 1 of the SLCP work in Pakistan and consultation held on LEAP-IBC assessment, the second phase aims to build capacity of provincial governments in Pakistan to take action on SLCPs through the development of actions plans to reduce SLCPs and air pollutants 
  • Include an SLCP emission reduction target within updated NDC for Pakistan by 2025 

Activities

To acheive these objectives the project will:

  • Undertake an extensive desk review of available literature - provincial, national and international.
  • Conduct a national stakeholder consultation to set agenda, inform on priorities, analyse demands and understand challenges
  • Conduct provincial stakeholder consultation to set agenda, inform on priorities, analyse demands and understand challenges in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and KPK
  • Develop and disseminate policy briefs and minutes from all consultations.
  • Develop a stakeholder map and power map with defined stakeholder roles and responsibilities in SLCP plans for Pakistan.
  • Individual calls, consultations, meetings, reviews, document exchange and periodic communications.
  • Develop, disseminate, collect, and analyse survey data and results.
  • Develop provincial action plans in close coordination with identified stakeholders and gathered inputs throughout the project to date.
  • Develop roadmaps, identification of sector-wide targets after extensive communication and consultation with identified stakeholders.
  • Develop communication plans, including equitable and just measures to ensure effective implementation and communication of action plans and roadmaps.
  • Align all goals and targets into a single national agenda, where all KPIs will be identified and a national target of SLCP emission reduction will be established and propagated in consultations with MoCC.
  • Organise media launches and events including webinars, seminars, talks, op-eds etc. of all action plans, reports, roadmaps and targets for public motivation and awareness.

 

Project reference: Enhancing and Enabling Climate Ambition for SLCP Management in Pakistan [PK-21-001]