ISLAMABAD    -         Federal Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman called for the commitments on loss and damage and adaptation, in this COP to move faster than the speed of the glaciers melting in Pakistan. “By the time the funds come to us, our climate needs change faster than the pace of funds released. From disaster recovery to resilient future, the missing link is finance and it’s dispersion, making sure that it reaches those who literally have to keep their heads above water.” “As we navigate the finish line of intense negotiations at COP27, one thing is clear: climate finance is now at the heart of the climate emergency, whether it is achieving the Paris Goal of 1.5 C, or delivering on Adaptation and Resilience goals. For countries like Pakistan, facing new records of vulnerability, a crisis of climate impacts along with debt has created huge communities of fragility and impoverishment, where people are unable to reinvent broken lives on ground they can no longer live or grow or build anything on. Global warming is triggering similar futures of climate distress, driven either by famine, drought, or flooding and rising sea levels which stalk the developing world, the Horn of Africa, the LDCs and the Small Island States, where the gap between needs and resources is too huge.” The Federal Minister was speaking at the Highlevel Ministerial event on ‘Loss and Damage: From Intention to Action’, organized by the Government of Pakistan at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Pavilion. The event was conducted with high level panelists from all over the world including H. E. Espon Barth Eide, Minister of Climate and Environment Norway, H. E. Saber Chowdhry, Head of Bangladesh Parliamentary Delegation to COP27, H. E. Molwyn Joseph, Minister of Health, Wellness and Environment of Antigua and Barbuda, Ms. Milagros De Camps, Vice Minister of Climate and Sustainability from Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources of the Dominican Republic, Mr. Simon Stiell Executive Secretary United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Mr. Yannick Glemarec, Executive Director Green Climate Fund. Minister Rehman said that “Inaction is no longer an option. We see commitment to higher goals here at COP27, but from our side of the burning planet, posing perils at multiple levels for societies that are no longer immune from what the Secretary General calls “a climate hell”. Pakistan’s people, and the economic system that has to drive the quality and pace of recovery from a flood that destroyed 33 million lives has sustained a huge exogenous shock. We are not big emitters rather quite the opposite. We need urgent buffers from a debt overhang that is squeezing out fiscal options to rebuild almost half the country, while we also need climate resilience funds that can be accessed with speed and scale. Right now, all climate funding is very slow to access, nor is it available for the kind of rebuilding needed. The relief funds that came via a UN flash appeal were crucial for saving lives but they cannot help us rebuild, either with or without resilience.