In the last decade or so, climate-change has become a series issue globally and Pakistan is amongst those countries which are severely affected by the climate change. This is why Pakistans first ever Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review (CPEIR) report is an impressive attempt towards accurately calculating Pakistans climate change-related expenditures.
The report which focuses on the fiscal years from 2010 to 2014 has been prepared under the supervision of Ministry of Finance by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).The first volume of the report covers the federal government, Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Gilgit-Baltistan (G-B) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P). The report aims to provide a platform for policymakers to better understand the issues related to climate change.
The authors of the report estimated that the federal governments spending on climate-change issues lies between 5.8 percent to 7.6 percent of the total expenditure for the last four years. This expenditure includes development and current budgets. The proportion of this spending varied significantly in the studied years.
Nevertheless, the report has acknowledged that although the fiscal belt for the climate-related issues is tight, it is certainly growing. The report also points out that the climate change related spending among different department of federal government is of erratic patterns. This highlights the need for a climate-change financing framework which can ensure a streamlined budget allocation.
The majority of the spending by federal government was within the energy sector where
for the mitigation purposes, the expenditure was about 57 percent during FY13 and FY 14. Further allocations were for transportation, health and social services, water resources and disaster preparedness.
With regard to Khayber-Pakhtunkhwa the Climate Public Expenditure and Institutional Review (CPEIR) presented a pleasant picture. The climate-change expenditure of the province has jumped to 35 percent following devolution. The annual development plan for the province represents 32 percent of the total budget during the four years from 2010 to 2014. The report has acknowledged that the fiscal space in the development budget of KP is larger than the federal budget. However, K-P government depends largely on donor funding and grants for the development budget which consist of 80 percent to 91 percent.
The climate-related spending of KP in last four years has gone up from Rs13 billion to Rs24.4 billion. This spending is higher than the increase in total revenues of the province. The climate-change related expenditures are widely spread and stable across different departments of the KP government. Federal and other provincial governments would do well to take a leaf or two out of KPs climate changing spending.

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