The grassroots imperative: reclaiming climate action

During the early 2000s, a prevalent and seemingly valid perception held that poverty was the main driver of pollution, particularly in terms of land and water contamination. This belief was often coupled with the idea that the poor, due to limited awareness, failed to take necessary precautions against pollution’s harmful effects.

As a result, there was a widespread call for urgent public awareness initiatives to educate people about the dangers of pollution. Surprisingly, this notion – that the poor lacked civic sense and were therefore responsible for littering and using contaminated water – was shared by both the wealthy and government officials.

The question of who bears the most responsibility for pollution eventually became clear. This happened when the importance of regulatory oversight was emphasized, along with the use of both incentives and penalties. At this point, the wealthier segment of society, including those involved in NGOs and business leaders, began to exercise some caution.

The business community, in particular, grew wary of regulation, fearing it would increase their production costs by adding a new expense for pollution control. Consequently, large companies established dedicated health, safety and environment departments, while medium and small businesses hired consultants to ensure regulatory compliance.

Unfortunately, and to the disappointment of those with even a basic understanding of environmentalism, this system proved ineffective, often existing only on paper. This failure stemmed from our regulatory framework being deeply embedded within a corrupt government structure.

NGOs remained notably silent when the importance of supply-side pollution control became apparent. This includes both regulatory measures and market mechanisms. While the regulatory side, involving government environmental laws and their strict enforcement, was straightforward, the market mechanism was less clearly defined in a time when ecological expertise was limited.

Today, we understand that this mechanism involves imposing pollution taxes on offenders and providing incentives to environmentally responsible companies. Unfortunately, despite some government-level attempts, this approach wasn’t fully implemented. This was largely due to the need for a digital system, free from human interference, to ensure fairness.

No stakeholder was willing to establish a system that functioned purely on merit, offering neither regulatory loopholes nor opportunities for businesses to evade accountability.

However, many large companies allocated significant funds for environmental initiatives through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes. This led to a tacit agreement between environmental NGOs and businesses, where each served the other’s needs. The result was widespread greenwashing.

Some NGOs, not all, promoted companies as eco-friendly regardless of their actual environmental impact. This is a particularly damaging form of greenwashing, where the supposed volunteer sector actively promotes both polluters and responsible businesses indiscriminately.

This time, however, given the intense and widespread impacts of climate change, such a strategy won’t hold. The tables have turned. The poor are now fully justified in blaming the rich for climate change due to their disproportionate emissions. Yet, the rich still maintain an advantage.

They know the poor often lack the awareness to grasp the root causes of this crisis, and they’re too preoccupied with basic survival to gain that understanding. This doesn’t mean awareness campaigns are absent, driven by fear of a climate-fueled uprising.

On the contrary, they’re being conducted with great enthusiasm, but deliberately misdirected. These campaigns often draw small crowds, and even those who participate frequently harbor ambitions of profiting from climate change initiatives.

The familiar pattern repeats: NGOs, often operating at a distance from the communities they claim to serve, wield disproportionate influence over Pakistan’s climate policy. These organizations, adept at donor relations, seamlessly align with the very entities perpetuating climate inaction. This dynamic creates a stratified climate response: a government sector driven by national commitments, a private sector focused on profiting from carbon markets and renewable energy, and a subdued civil society relegated to accepting whatever benefits remain. Inevitably, the most vulnerable, the poor, bear the brunt of this inequitable system.

It’s almost impossible to get through to them that Pakistan’s biggest challenge is adaptation, not just mitigation. While mitigation, through measures like fossil fuel taxes and renewable energy support, is crucial, adaptation requires buy-in from both local governments and communities to succeed. That’s why current adaptation projects are often large-scale and disconnected from the grassroots, hindering effective implementation. To truly benefit from climate financing, a shift towards smaller, community-led projects is essential.

Objectively speaking, climate initiatives are being implemented with a top-down, managerial approach, where the implementing agency holds all the power. This echoes a colonial system, where the rulers disregard the needs of the people.

A more balanced approach would be a partnership, with the government handling major financial aspects and the community taking on labor, post-project care, and maintenance.

However, even this is rare. True participatory approaches, where communities design, fund and implement their own projects, are virtually nonexistent. Potential beneficiaries understand that both partnership and participatory models would restrict their ability to manage projects arbitrarily.

Let’s be clear: climate finance is fundamentally different from typical environmental grants. These aren’t simple, local projects with easy justifications. If climate disaster losses continue, donors will demand concrete results. Everyone understands adaptation projects show progress relatively quickly.

This isn’t charity; these are legally mandated funds from Global North taxpayers, meant to support nations most vulnerable to climate change. Expect meticulous scrutiny of every expenditure. Furthermore, those contributing compensation for their climate impact will be expected to demonstrate tangible results at the global level.