Climate authority summoned again as questions grow…

Islamabad: The Pakistan Climate Change Authority has been called back before a Senate committee only days after Chairperson Sherry Rehman strongly questioned why a new authority was operating alongside the Climate Change Ministry, asked what new work it was actually doing and raised concerns over staff costs, duplication and the use of public money. The fresh meeting will again focus almost entirely on the authority, its work, projects, programmes and progress.

The quick return of the issue to the committee has increased pressure on the authority to clearly explain why it exists and what results it has produced that the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination could not already deliver. At the previous meeting, Sherry Rehman repeatedly asked officials what work the authority was doing that the ministry was not already responsible for.

She questioned whether the government had effectively created a parallel structure carrying out the same work on climate mitigation, adaptation, coordination and policy implementation. Rehman said the presentation before the committee did not show a clear new role for the authority.

She also questioned why another institution was being created at a time when the ministry itself was facing shrinking development budgets. One of the strongest moments came when the committee discussed the authority’s staffing and expenditure.

Rehman referred to a sanctioned strength of 24 positions and said employee related expenditure had already reached around Rs 80 million according to the presentation placed before the committee. She questioned why these costs were being incurred when she could not see a clear difference between the work of the authority and the ministry.

She warned officials not to treat the meeting as a routine presentation exercise and demanded direct answers about public spending and actual results. Rehman also questioned whether creating the authority had brought new climate experts into government.

Members asked whether the purpose was to recruit technocrats who could not otherwise be brought into the ministry. However, Rehman said the presentation appeared to show many of the same officials who had already worked inside government departments.

She described the situation as a reshuffling of bureaucracy rather than the creation of a new technical institution. She said fragmentation was already a major government problem, with different organisations working separately on connected climate and disaster issues.

According to her argument, creating another body without a clearly different mandate could increase costs while making responsibility more confusing. Rehman also questioned why the authority had been activated years after the law creating it first appeared.

She said the law allowed the authority to exist but argued that this did not necessarily mean the government was forced to operationalise it. She said earlier governments had discussed removing such overlapping structures instead.

During the exchange, she said she had opposed operationalising the authority while serving as minister because she feared it would create duplication. She told the committee that the result now appeared close to what she had warned about: officials were moving between the ministry and the authority instead of creating a completely new technical team.

The authority defended its role. Dr Muhammad Rafiq told the committee that the authority was originally designed to provide technical support to the ministry. He acknowledged that more explanation was needed regarding what the authority was delivering against its original responsibilities.

He suggested that the ministry and authority should be given an opportunity to return with a clearer presentation explaining what results they expected to achieve and what the authority could do that the ministry could not.

The committee was told that the authority was still incomplete. Officials said a permanent chairperson was still being appointed and that only three members were working at the authority with a limited number of staff against the total positions planned.

The authority also presented one of its strongest arguments in defence of its performance. An authority member told the committee that it had become Pakistan’s first public sector organisation to qualify as a delivery partner with the Green Climate Fund through the relevant mechanism.

The official said this had been achieved by only three members and without technical assistance. He argued that this status could help the authority develop technical proposals and bring more climate finance into Pakistan.

Rehman was not convinced that this achievement alone justified a separate authority. She argued that Green Climate Fund financing had already been coming to Pakistan through government structures and questioned why a completely new authority was needed when a climate finance office could operate within the ministry.

She again asked why project development and technical hiring could not be handled directly by the ministry. Her central question remained the same throughout the discussion: what exactly could the new authority do that the ministry could not already do?

The ministry told the committee that it had a supervisory and controlling role over the authority and that the authority’s budget passed through the ministry. However, Rehman continued to question how effective that control was if the authority could hire staff and exercise statutory powers separately.

She asked officials to explain how rotating officials into a separate authority would make climate work more efficient when the ministry itself was losing development resources.

Professor Dr Zahoor Ahmed Bazai, who identified himself as an unpaid member nominated to the authority and as a climate change academic, defended the institution. He told the committee that the authority was included in the climate law and that members had been nominated through the formal process.

He argued that the authority was intended to provide expertise and serve an advisory role. Rehman said her criticism was not directed personally at individual members. She said the bigger problem was duplication between institutions and the growing number of attached bodies dealing with similar climate matters.

The committee chairperson was also critical of the presentation the authority gave. Rehman said the presentation was not strong enough to be used by Pakistan at an international climate forum and described it as outdated in style.

She said that if the authority wanted to demonstrate its value and expertise, it should return with a stronger and more modern presentation showing its actual achievements, mandate and future work. Her criticism later widened to the government’s overall climate structure.

Rehman questioned why new authorities were being created while key institutions responsible for early warning and disaster response already existed.

She also raised concerns about officials receiving public money in new bodies without clear proof of results and questioned whether the authority would simply produce more reports instead of delivering action on the ground.

The latest committee notice now shows that the Pakistan Climate Change Authority has been placed back at the centre of parliamentary scrutiny. The next meeting has only one main substantive agenda item.

The Secretary of the Climate Change Ministry has been asked to brief lawmakers on the authority’s work and functions, ongoing activities, projects, programmes, initiatives, progress and role in implementing climate policy. The authority will therefore return facing a simple but politically difficult question.