How the G77 group of developing nations helped advance the cause of climate justice under Pakistan’s presidency 

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Updated 27 December 2022
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How the G77 group of developing nations helped advance the cause of climate justice under Pakistan’s presidency 

  • The “loss and damage” climate compensation fund was secured at COP27 in Egypt in November
  • FM Bilawal Bhutto Zardari says he is proud the mechanism was secured under Pakistan’s chairmanship 

NEW YORK CITY: Developing countries made history at the UN Climate Change Conference, COP27, in Egypt’s Sharm El-Sheikh in November when they secured a new “loss and damage” fund to support victims of climate disasters. 

This key breakthrough, which encourages wealthy nations to provide financial assistance to developing countries grappling with the climate crisis, was hailed as a historic victory, crowning a decades-long struggle. 

“This is a significant achievement,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistan’s foreign minister, told Arab News in an exclusive interview in New York City, having just concluded his country’s G77 presidency and passed the torch to Cuba. 

“This is something that climate activists have been struggling for for 30 years and I am proud of the fact that it was under Pakistan’s chairmanship of the G77 that we managed to achieve that aim.”




Flood waters submerged one-third of the country, covering an area equivalent to the size of the UK. (AFP)

Pakistan, as the 2022 chair of the G77 group of 134 developing nations, has led the charge in the global fight for climate assistance to the developing world. 

Many of these countries contribute relatively little to global greenhouse gas emissions, yet are themselves often the most vulnerable to climate catastrophes, such as rising sea levels, prolonged heat waves, desertification, ocean acidification, extreme weather, bush fires, loss of biodiversity, and crop failures.

Prior to COP27, Islamabad had succeeded in putting the issue of “loss and damage” on the summit agenda. This was no easy feat. 

For decades, wealthy, industrialized countries, which produce the most greenhouse gas emissions, resisted the idea of such a fund, citing fears of continuous demands for compensation on the part of the low-income countries. 

Their change of heart was likely influenced by Pakistan’s own unprecedented climate disaster. 

Between June and October, intense monsoon rains resulted in catastrophic flooding, which many scientists and Pakistani officials believe was the result of man-made climate change. 

Flood waters submerged one-third of the country, covering an area equivalent to the size of the UK. More than 1,400 people were killed and thousands more injured. Around 33 million people were directly impacted, including 6 million left destitute. 




Around 33 million people were directly impacted, including 6 million left destitute. (AFP)

The floods destroyed 1.7 million homes, 12,000 km of road, 375 bridges, and 5 million acres of crops, costing Pakistan an estimated $40 billion in damages, while amply demonstrating why a loss and damage fund was so urgently needed. 

Indeed, Pakistan is responsible for less than 1 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, and yet, like many vulnerable nations, predominantly in the global south, appears to be carrying the burden of man-made climate change. 

“Success is always the result of compromise,” Bhutto Zardari told Arab News.

“And I feel that we’ve managed to achieve some common ground through the language incorporated in loss and damage. 

FASTFACTS

• The G77 is a coalition of 134 developing countries at the UN designed to promote its members’ collective economic interests and enhanced joint negotiating capacity.

• The “loss and damage” fund, under which wealthy nations provide financial support to those impacted by climate disasters, was secured at COP27 in Egypt in November.

• Pakistan, which suffered catastrophic flooding this year linked to man-made climate change, has led the charge on loss and damage during its G77 presidency.

“We need to look at this, not just as the developed world needing to give compensation or reparations to the developing world, but as a more practical approach, a more realistic approach, that we have to work together.

“The global south and the global north have to work together. The developing world and the developed world have to work together. 

“Climate justice, climate catastrophe, knows no boundaries, does not care whether you’re rich or poor, whether you contributed to climate change much or you didn’t. 

“It is devastating lives in Pakistan. It is devastating lives here in the US, where recently you had Hurricane Ian. In China, the heat wave. Drought and forest fires in South Africa. In Europe, floods. 

“Wherever we look we see climate catastrophes catching up to us and we have to work together to address this issue. 

“Obviously, there are different perspectives. The developing world feels that their carbon footprint is smaller, they haven’t contributed as much as the developed world has to the crisis.

“They haven’t benefited in the same way the developed world has from industrialization. And therefore we have to find the middle ground between the two to address this issue.”




“Climate justice, climate catastrophe, knows no boundaries,” said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Pakistani Foreign Minister. (AFP)

Pakistan is a founding member of the G77, which was established in 1964 and is the largest intergovernmental grouping of developing countries in the UN system. It provides a platform for developing nations to advocate their common economic interests within the international body. 

Islamabad had assumed the presidency of the group — its third tenure since the group was founded — armed with a list of priorities it intended to address. 

The UN has repeatedly stressed that global challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of climate change, and a lack of progress on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals are disproportionately falling on the shoulders of the world’s poorest.

The discrepancy in vaccination rates around the world alone was a shocking illustration of the widening gap between low-income and rich nations. 

According to Our World in Data figures, as of July 2022, just 15.8 percent of people in low-income countries were fully vaccinated, compared with 55 percent in lower-middle income countries, 73.5 percent in high-income countries, and 78.7 percent in upper-middle income countries.




Many have had to rely on food aid to survive. (AFP)

Closing these chronic gaps between rich and poor and recalibrating the strategic power dynamic has been the raison d’etre of the G77 since its creation.

“The agenda, or the aspiration of the G77, is exactly that. We represent the aspirations of the developing world,” said Bhutto Zardari. “It is one of the largest forums at the UN.

“To say at the end of our one-year term that we managed to fundamentally alter the dynamics between the developing world, the global south and the global north, would not be correct. There is a lot of work to be done.

“But I do believe we’ve managed to highlight some of these discrepancies, some of these predictions and particularly within the context of COP27, the success of G77 to get loss and damage onto its agenda goes a long way to address this discrepancy.” 




Almost a third of Pakistan was submerged when Monsoon rains caused flooding, including Dera Allah Yar town in Balochistan province. (AFP)

Beyond the climate crisis, the pandemic, and regional conflicts, developing nations have also borne the brunt of inflationary pressures resulting from the war in Ukraine, which have caused food and fuel prices to skyrocket over the course of the past year.

Combined, these challenges have hampered the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals — a collection of 17 interlinked objectives formulated in 2015 to serve as a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet to be achieved by 2030.

“I believe as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and a whole host of other factors, including the Ukraine war, we have not been able to make the necessary progress on SDGs,” said Bhutto Zardari. 

“If we do want to achieve that goal then it requires quite an ambitious reform agenda that would endorse many of the suggestions of Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, who also calls for reforms of international financial institutions in order for us to be able to deliver on SDGs.”

To overcome these concurrent crises, restore economies, achieve the SDGs, and address the “unequal and unjust” international economic system, Bhutto Zardari used his G77 presidency handover speech on Dec. 15 to call for emergency measures and structural changes. 

These include mobilizing urgent humanitarian support for more than 50 countries in economic distress, providing emergency food supplies through the UN to the 250 million people who are food insecure, boosting food production and supplies to moderate prices, and facilitating farmers’ access to seeds, fertilizers and finance. 

Bhutto Zardari also urged the international community to ensure developing countries had sufficient access to energy, to mobilize $1 trillion per year to invest in sustainable infrastructure, and for “systemic and structural reforms” to address the inequalities of the international financial system.




“We will continue our services but we need more donations and more funds so that we can scale up our services,” said Ayaz Hussain, Health specialist, UNICEF. (Supplied)

Loss and damage was a rare point of policy convergence in South Asia and a demonstration of developing nations wielding collective strength when they have common cause. “I think we were very successful in creating that consensus,” Bhutto Zardari told Arab News. 

“Time and time again, the G77 has come together to take unanimous decisions, consensus decisions. Every meeting that we chaired here has had an outcome document. 

“I don’t think it would have been possible to insist on loss and damage being part of the agenda or ultimately agreeing to get the loss and damage fund in financial arrangements… without consensus and unity across the board at G77. 

“In the past year, we managed to sustain that consensus and it’s incredibly encouraging.”

He added: “The art of diplomacy, of politics, is being able to find mutual ground. I am a strong believer. I think the politics domestically in my country and internationally tend to be politics of division. 

“I tend to believe that there’s far more that unites us than divides us. And we should seek common ground, areas in which we can work together, rather than find areas where we disagree.” 


India readies for US extradition of Pakistan-born suspect in Mumbai attacks

Updated 8 sec ago
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India readies for US extradition of Pakistan-born suspect in Mumbai attacks

  • Tahawwur Hussain Rana, Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media says
  • India accuses Rana of being member of Pakistan-based LeT group designated by the UN as a ‘terrorist’ organization

NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.
India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization, and of aiding planning the attacks. Pakistan has always denied official complicity.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blames the LeT group — as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan — for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his long-term friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslims around the globe.
But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley — and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done.”
Devika Rotawan, a survivor of the Mumbai attacks, said she believed the extradition of Rana would be a “big win for India.”
“I will never be able to forget the attack,” she told broadcaster NDTV on Wednesday.
Counterterrorism experts however suggest Rana’s involvement was peripheral compared to Headley, a US citizen, who India also wants extradited.
“They gave us a small fish but kept David Headley, so the essential outcome is going to be symbolic,” said Ajay Sahni, head of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Rana knew Headley, 64, from their days together at boarding school in Pakistan.
Headley, who testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial, said he had used his friend’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India, by opening a branch in Mumbai.
Rana has said he visited Mumbai ahead of the attacks — and stayed at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel that would become the epicenter of the bloody siege — but denied involvement in the conspiracy.
Sahni said that more than 16 years after the attacks, Rana’s extradition is of “historical importance” rather than a source of any “live intelligence.”
But he added that handing him over has “a chilling effect” on others abroad who India seeks to put on trial.


India readies for US extradition of Mumbai attacks suspect

Updated 09 April 2025
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India readies for US extradition of Mumbai attacks suspect

  • Tahawwur Hussain Rana, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited ‘shortly’ to face trial
  • India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group

NEW DELHI: Indian authorities are readying for the extradition from the United States of a man that New Delhi accuses of helping plan the 2008 Mumbai siege that killed 166 people.
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64, a Canadian citizen born in Pakistan, is due to be extradited “shortly” to face trial, Indian media said, reporting that New Delhi had sent a multi-agency team of security officials to collect him.
India accuses him of being a member of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) group, designated by the United Nations as a terrorist organization, and of aiding planning the attacks.
US President Donald Trump announced in February that Washington would extradite Rana, whom he called “one of the very evil people in the world.”
The US Supreme Court this month rejected his bid to remain in the United States, where he is serving a sentence for a planning role in another LeT-linked attack.
New Delhi blames the LeT group – as well as intelligence officials from New Delhi’s arch-enemy Pakistan – for the Mumbai attacks in November 2008, when 10 Islamist gunmen carried out a multi-day slaughter in the country’s financial capital.
India accuses Rana of helping his longterm friend, David Coleman Headley, who was sentenced by a US court in 2013 to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to aiding LeT militants, including by scouting target locations in Mumbai.
Rana, a former military medic who served in Pakistan’s army, emigrated to Canada in 1997, before moving to the United States and setting up businesses in Chicago, including a law firm and a slaughterhouse.
He was arrested by US police in 2009.
A US court in 2013 acquitted Rana of conspiracy to provide material support to the Mumbai attacks. But the same court convicted him of backing LeT to provide material support to a plot to commit murder in Denmark.
Rana was sentenced to 14 years for his involvement in a conspiracy to attack the offices of the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, which had published cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad that angered Muslims around the globe.
But India maintains Rana is one of the key plotters of the Mumbai attacks along with the convicted Headley – and the authorities have welcomed his expected extradition.
In February, Devendra Fadnavis, chief minister of Maharashtra state which includes the megacity Mumbai, said that “finally, the long wait is over and justice will be done.”
Devika Rotawan, a survivor of the Mumbai attacks, said she believed the extradition of Rana would be a “big win for India.”
“I will never be able to forget the attack,” she told broadcaster NDTV on Wednesday.
Counterterrorism experts however suggest Rana’s involvement was peripheral compared to Headley, a US citizen, who India also wants extradited.
“They gave us a small fish but kept David Headley, so the essential outcome is going to be symbolic,” said Ajay Sahni, head of the Institute for Conflict Management, a New Delhi-based think tank.
Rana knew Headley, 64, from their days together at boarding school in Pakistan.
Headley, who testified as a government witness at Rana’s trial, said he had used his friend’s Chicago-based immigration services firm as a cover to scout targets in India, by opening a branch in Mumbai.
Rana has said he visited Mumbai ahead of the attacks – and stayed at the luxury Taj Mahal Palace Hotel that would become the epicenter of the bloody siege – but denied involvement in the conspiracy.
Sahni said that more than 16 years after the attacks, Rana’s extradition is of “historical importance” rather than a source of any “live intelligence.”
But he added that handing him over has “a chilling effect” on others abroad who India seeks to put on trial.


Austrian woman on trial after repatriation from Syrian detention camp

Updated 09 April 2025
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Austrian woman on trial after repatriation from Syrian detention camp

  • Evelyn T., who is accused of having been a member of a terrorist group from 2015 to 2017, could face up to 10 years in prison
  • She left Austria for Syria’s then Daesh controlled area in 2016 to join her husband

VIENNA: An Austrian woman who was brought back alongside her son from a Syrian detention camp went on trial in Vienna on Wednesday, in the first such case in the country.
Since the Daesh group was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019, the return of family members of fighters that were either captured or killed has been a thorny issue for European countries.
Evelyn T., 26, has been in detention since she was repatriated to Austria last month, while her son, seven, was placed in social services’ custody.
On Wednesday, she was expected to plead guilty in court to the charges of being part of a terrorist group and a criminal organization, according to her lawyer Anna Mair.
“She takes responsibility for what she has done... and she wants to lead a normal life in the future,” Mair said ahead of the trial’s opening.
Evelyn T., who is accused of having been a member of a terrorist group from 2015 to 2017, could face up to 10 years in prison.
She left Austria for Syria’s then Daesh controlled area in 2016 to join her husband, “supporting him psychologically and taking care of the household,” according to the charges.
Their son was born in 2017. The couple surrendered later that year, with Evelyn T. and her son ending up in a Kurdish-run detention camp for suspected militants.
The two were repatriated together with another woman, Maria G., and her two sons.
Maria, now 28, left Austria in 2017 to join Daesh in Syria. She remains free since her return, while an investigation is ongoing.
Last year, a Vienna court ordered that she and her sons be repatriated, stressing that it was “in the children’s greater interest.”
Austria’s foreign ministry had previously rejected her request to be repatriated, saying that only the children would be accepted.
The EU member previously repatriated several children.
Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands are among other countries that have repatriated relatives of militant fighters.
Many of the women returned have been charged with terrorism crimes and imprisoned.


EU countries set to approve first retaliation against US tariffs

Updated 09 April 2025
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EU countries set to approve first retaliation against US tariffs

  • The approval will come on the day that Trump’s ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on the EU and dozens of countries took effect
  • The European Commission proposed on Monday extra duties mostly of 25 percent on a range of US imports

BRUSSELS: European Union countries are expected to approve on Wednesday the bloc’s first countermeasures against US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, joining China and Canada in retaliating and escalating a conflict that could become a global trade war.
The approval will come on the day that Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs on the EU and dozens of countries took effect, including massive 104 percent duties on China, extending his tariff onslaught and spurring more widespread selling across financial markets.
The 27-nation bloc faces 25 percent import tariffs on steel and aluminum and cars as well as the new broader tariffs of 20 percent for almost all other goods under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.
The European Commission, which coordinates EU trade policy, proposed on Monday extra duties mostly of 25 percent on a range of US imports in response specifically to the US metals tariffs. It is still assessing how to respond to the car and broader levies.
The imports include motorcycles, poultry, fruit, wood, clothing and dental floss, according to a document seen by Reuters. They totaled about €21 billion ($23 billion) last year, meaning the EU’s retaliation will be against goods worth less than the €26 billion of EU metals exports hit by US tariffs.
They are to enter force in stages – on April 15, May 16 and December 1.
A committee of trade experts from the EU’s 27 countries will vote on Wednesday afternoon on the Commission’s proposal, which will only be blocked if a “qualified majority” of 15 EU members representing 65 percent of the EU population vote against.
That is an unlikely event given the Commission has already canvassed EU members and refined an initial list from mid-March, removing US dairy and alcoholic drinks.
Major wine exporters France and Italy had expressed concern after Trump threatened to hit EU wine and spirits with a 200 percent tariff if the EU went ahead with its planned 50 percent duty on bourbon.
Trump has already responded to Beijing’s counter-tariffs announced last week, nearly doubling duties on Chinese imports. China has vowed to “fight to the end.”


Indonesia president says ready to temporarily shelter Gazans

Updated 09 April 2025
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Indonesia president says ready to temporarily shelter Gazans

  • “We are ready to receive wounded victims,” Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto said
  • Wounded Palestinians and “traumatized, orphaned children” would be prioritized, he said.

JAKARTA: Indonesia President Prabowo Subianto on Wednesday said he was prepared to grant temporary shelter to Palestinians affected by the war in Gaza between the Israeli military and the territory’s rulers Hamas.
Nearly 400,000 Gaza residents have been displaced in the weeks since Israel resumed military operations in the territory last month, according to the United Nations.
“We are ready to receive wounded victims,” Prabowo said before leaving for a Middle East visit to the United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan.
“We are ready to send planes to transport them. We estimate the numbers may be 1,000 for the first wave.”
Wounded Palestinians and “traumatized, orphaned children” would be prioritized, he said.
He said he had instructed his foreign minister to talk with Palestinian officials and “parties in the region” on how to evacuate wounded or orphaned Gazans.
The victims would only be in Indonesia until they recovered and it was safe for their return.
Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, has consistently called for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to Turkish media, Prabowo will be afforded the rare opportunity to address the Turkish parliament.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is one of the main backers of the Palestinian cause and visited Indonesia in February, where the pair pledged closer ties.