Najam Discusses Global Costs of Climate Change During UN Keynote
On October 11, 2022, Adil Najam, Dean Emeritus and Professor of International Relations and Earth and Environment at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, gave a keynote address at the United Nations on climate change and poverty.
The keynote was given at the start of a new substantive general assembly session at a joint session of the UN Economic and Social Council and the Second Committee of the UN General Assembly. Najam also discussed the “Living Indus” report, for which he was the lead author, which looks at a holistic development-centered approach to climate adaptation. He argued that the world needs to move to such a holistic approach in what is now an entrenched “Age of Adaptation.”
Najam pointed out that sufficient funds have not been allocated from the most developed and polluting countries of the world to address pressing climate justice demands. The $100 billion that was promised from the Paris Agreement from the polluting industrialized countries has not materialized. Moreover, what had then seemed like an impressively large number now looks abjectly inadequate – at least $10 billion for just the cost of the Pakistan floods – and is being borne by the world’s poorest people who are least responsible for climate change.
Spoke today @UN to joint @UNECOSOC & 2nd Committee on how #ClimateChange is changing the structure & meaning of #poverty.
Talked, of course, of #PakistanFloods & @LivingIndus. But need to continue discussion with @SFParr on centrality of #ClimateJustice, both global + domestic. pic.twitter.com/IGNA6GBEAk
— Adil Najam (@AdilNajam) October 11, 2022
Adil Najam is a global public policy expert who served as the Inaugural Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and was the former Vice-Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). His research focuses on issues of global public policy, especially those related to global climate change, South Asia, Muslim countries, environment and development, and human development. Read more about Najam on his faculty profile.