ISTANBUL

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Friday that developing countries like Pakistan need “flexible” financial support to build climate change resilient infrastructure, state media reported.

“Without such support, the path to climate adaptation and green transformation will remain elusive,” Sharif told "Breathe Pakistan," a two-day international climate change conference held in Islamabad since Thursday.

Pakistan is one of the most affected countries by climate change even though the country’s contribution to it is less than 1%, he added.

According to experts who spoke at the conference, the South Asian nation requires an annual investment of $40 billion to $50 billion until 2050 to meet its looming climate change challenges.

Constant and prolonged droughts coupled with devastating floods and extended heat waves have taken a toll on the country's economy.

Massive floods inundated a third of the country in 2022, killing 1,700 people and causing a whopping $30 billion in economic losses to its already struggling economy.

A Geneva conference in January 2023 saw pledges worth around $10 billion from multilateral financial institutions and countries in the aftermath of the worst floods, but most of the money pledged has not yet reached people on the ground.

The country received $2.8 billion from international creditors against the total pledges by June 2024.