Why rooftop solar panels are the easiest way for Pakistan to reduce emissions

The message that came through the United Nations’ climate change conference (COP27) in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh is loud and clear: nations need to do more to slow down climate change or the consequences will be catastrophic. For Pakistan, the deadly effects of climate change are already here. This year’s monsoon floods have caused devastation on a scale never seen before. At COP27, Pakistan iterated that while it was responsible for less than one per cent of global carbon emissions, these emissions triggered the floods, submerging a third of the country, killing over 1,700 people and leaving millions homeless, impoverished and ill. Damages are estimated at a whopping $40 billion. Developing countries such as Pakistan wanted to create a ‘loss and damage’ financial mechanism that would make it mandatory for developed countries to offset the impact of climate change on developing countries and assist energy-poor countries in making the transition to net zero emissions — a balance between man-made greenhouse gas emissions and their removal from the atmosphere. While the recently concluded COP27 reached a “breakthrough” agreement to set up such a fund, a ‘transitional committee’ will deliberate how to operationalise it at COP28 next year.