Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif says Pakistan should not be forced to go out with a “begging bowl” to rich polluting nations after the floods devastated the country, stressing that he would be seeking “climate justice” from the international community.
He stated this in the second part of his interview with the British daily The Guardian. He warned that Pakistan is facing an unprecedented crisis of health, food security and internal displacement after the apocalyptic monsoons put a third of Pakistan’s regions under water.
With Pakistan responsible for 0.8 percent of global carbon emissions, Shehbaz Sharif said it is the responsibility of the developed countries, which caused these emissions, to stand by us.
He said the enormity of this climate-induced catastrophe is beyond our fiscal means and the gap between our needs and what is available is too wide and it is widening by the day.
The Prime Minister expressed confidence that Pakistan would not get defaulted despite the upcoming billions of foreign debt repayments and the billions more in flood damages.
Shehbaz Sharif confirmed that the government would be talking to everybody about the possibility of foreign debt moratorium. What we are asking for is fiscal space but not through the burden of more debt.
Source: Radio Pakistan