Najam Delivers SDPI Lecture on Climate Change from a Pakistan Perspective
On October 24, 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, delivered a special lecture at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in Islamabad, Pakistan on climate change, climate adaptation, climate justice, as well as Pakistan‘s climate health.
During his lecture, titled “From Indus to Sharm El-Sheikh: A Desi Perspective on Climate Change,” Najam went about addressing three major questions: what is the climate telling us, how is a living Indus a barometer of Pakistan’s climate health, and what can Pakistan tell the world about living the Age of Adaptation? In exploring these questions, Najam addressed the failures of existing climate agreements, the evolution of climate policy worldwide, the transformation of the climate issue from one of mitigation to adaptation, as well as how Pakistan can tackle its own climate challenges.
Was back at @SDPIPakistan – now in its 30th year.
Shared ideas on what “desi” thinking on #ClimateChange may look like. What if we we went to int’l meetings not as ‘policy takers’ but as advocates for ordinarily Pakistanis. That road, I proposed, passes through a #LivingIndus. pic.twitter.com/S3vZTUpQan
— Adil Najam (@AdilNajam) October 25, 2022
The lecture was also the subject of a The News International article. The piece, titled “Global North urged to fulfil its commitment of carbon reduction,” outlines Najam’s remarks and his calls for countries in the Global North to fulfill their carbon reduction commitments and poorer countries like Pakistan to adapt to climate change and develop resilience to natural disasters. The full article can be read on The News International‘s website.
The full lecture can be viewed below.
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.