Pakistan Takes Its Climate Case to COP31: What Shehbaz Sharif Will Tell World Leaders in Antalya

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is flying to Antalya, Türkiye, today to put Pakistan’s climate case before world leaders at COP31. He will address the Leaders’ Summit on 11 November, and his message will be simple: Pakistan did almost nothing to cause climate change, yet it is paying one of the highest prices for it — and it needs the world’s help to cope.

The prime minister’s three-day visit, from 10 to 12 November, comes just a day after the COP31 climate talks opened in the Turkish Mediterranean city. The Foreign Office announced the trip on Tuesday, saying Shehbaz will urge the global community to take concrete action against climate change, show off Pakistan’s rapid switch to solar power, and press rich countries to deliver the climate money they have promised developing nations.

For Pakistan, this is not an abstract debate. The country has lived through two devastating flood disasters in four years, and its people are still paying for them. That lived experience is what gives Pakistan’s voice weight in the room — and what makes this speech worth watching.

What Shehbaz Sharif will say in Antalya

According to the Foreign Office, the prime minister’s address to the Leaders’ Summit on 11 November will focus on three things.

First, he will urge world leaders to take concrete, practical steps to tackle climate change, rather than repeating promises that are never kept. Second, he will highlight what Pakistan is already doing at home — above all, its “rapid solarisation and expansion of its renewable energy capacity”, as the Foreign Office put it, as part of the country’s move towards a “cleaner and more resilient economy”. Third, he will point to Pakistan’s work on disaster preparedness and early-warning systems, the kind of measures that save lives when floods or heatwaves strike.

He will also make a direct demand on money. The prime minister will call for climate finance for developing countries that is “predictable, adequate and accessible” — in other words, funding that arrives on time, in enough quantity, and without so much red tape that the countries that need it most cannot get it.

Beyond the main speech, Shehbaz will attend a high-level roundtable organised by the COP31 presidency on the sidelines of the Leaders’ Summit. He will also hold bilateral meetings with the Turkish leadership and several other world leaders during the visit, the Foreign Office said.

The Foreign Office described the prime minister’s participation as an expression of Pakistan’s “strong support for the climate agenda” and a chance to reaffirm its commitment to working closely with the international community on the climate crisis.

Why Pakistan’s voice carries weight at COP31

Pakistan produces less than one per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. Yet it is ranked among the countries most exposed to climate extremes. The Climate Risk Index 2026 places Pakistan 15th among the countries most affected by extreme weather over the 30-year period from 1995 to 2024.

The 2022 floods are the reason everyone knows. Monsoon rains far heavier than normal, combined with melting glaciers after a severe heatwave, submerged a third of the country. Around 33 million people were affected — roughly one in seven Pakistanis — and more than 1,700 people were killed. The official Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, prepared by the government with the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and international partners, put the damage at 14.9 billion US dollars and the economic losses at 15.2 billion dollars. The cost of rebuilding was estimated at 16.3 billion dollars. Scientists later found that global heating had made the flooding up to 50 per cent worse.

Three years later, the 2025 monsoon showed that 2022 was not a one-off disaster. The Ministry of Planning’s preliminary assessment put the losses from the 2025 floods at around 822 billion rupees, or about 2.9 billion US dollars. More than 1,000 people died, around four million were displaced and about 6.5 million people were affected across 70 districts. Agriculture alone accounted for 430 billion rupees of the damage.

Together, the two disasters cost Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars, before counting heatwaves, droughts and smaller floods. That is the backdrop to everything Shehbaz Sharif will say in Antalya: a country that emits almost nothing is repeatedly paying billions for a crisis made mostly by others.

The solar story Pakistan will showcase

If the floods are the reason Pakistan demands help, solar power is the story it will use to show it is helping itself. And it is a remarkable story.

Pakistan is living through one of the fastest solar booms anywhere in the world. According to the International Energy Agency’s Electrification Special Report, published in September 2026, Pakistan imported about 51 gigawatts of solar panels between 2021 and 2025. Installed distributed solar capacity in 2025 was estimated at between 28 and 38 gigawatts, with rooftop systems making up roughly 80 per cent of it and households accounting for around half of all installations.

The boom has been driven from the bottom up, not by government planning. Expensive electricity, unreliable supply and collapsing panel prices pushed households and businesses to put panels on their own roofs. The IEA reports that the typical business in Pakistan goes without grid electricity for around 45 hours every month — so for many people, solar panels are not a green luxury but a practical answer to power cuts and rising bills.

The numbers behind the boom are striking. Analysis by Renewables First and the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air found that Pakistan went from importing less than one gigawatt of solar modules in 2018 to more than 51 gigawatts by early 2026, and that the boom had already saved the country more than 12 billion dollars in oil and gas imports by February. The number of solar-powered households rose 147 per cent, from 3.0 million in 2023 to 7.3 million in 2025. Cumulative solar panel imports reached nearly 55 gigawatts by March 2026.

Energy Minister Awais Leghari has said that around 74 per cent of Pakistan’s electricity generation now comes from domestic sources, and the government aims to raise that share above 96 per cent by 2034. Hydro, nuclear and solar together account for roughly 55 per cent of electricity generation.

There are complications, and Shehbaz is unlikely to hide them. In February 2026, the power regulator replaced net metering — which let solar households cancel out their bills one-for-one — with a net-billing system that pays much less for surplus electricity sent back to the grid. The change has been unpopular with solar owners, and the rapid growth of rooftop solar has left distribution companies with billions of rupees in stranded grid costs. But the overall direction is clear: Pakistan’s energy system is being transformed, largely by its own citizens, and the prime minister will present that as proof that developing countries can move fast when the economics work.

What Pakistan wants: climate money that actually arrives

The heart of Pakistan’s case at COP31 is money — specifically, the gap between what rich countries have promised and what vulnerable countries actually receive.

Pakistan has been making this argument for years. At COP27 in Egypt in 2022, weeks after the floods, Pakistan played a leading role in pushing for a Loss and Damage Fund to help vulnerable developing countries recover from climate disasters. The fund was agreed at that summit, a result Shehbaz Sharif hailed as a significant outcome. But getting money out of such funds, and in useful amounts, has been slow.

Islamabad has also repeatedly urged developed countries to honour their commitment to mobilise 100 billion dollars a year in climate finance for developing nations. Pakistan’s position, repeated in the Foreign Office statement, is that this finance should be predictable, adequate and accessible — and that adaptation and disaster resilience deserve far more funding than they currently get.

The scale of what Pakistan needs is enormous. The United Nations estimates that the country needs about 348 billion dollars between 2023 and 2030 to meet its climate and development needs, including 152 billion dollars for adaptation and resilience alone. No developing country can find that kind of money on its own. That is why Shehbaz will keep returning to the same point in Antalya: the countries that caused the least of this crisis should not be left to pay for it alone.

The meetings that matter

The speech is only part of the visit. The bilateral meetings on the sidelines may matter just as much.

Shehbaz will meet the Turkish leadership, continuing a close relationship between the two countries — Türkiye is hosting COP31, and the two governments have deepened defence and economic ties in recent years. He will also meet several other world leaders, though the Foreign Office did not name them in advance.

The high-level roundtable convened by the COP31 presidency is another chance to push Pakistan’s priorities directly with the people running the negotiations. Roundtables like this are where the real bargaining happens — over finance, over who pays for loss and damage, and over how fast countries must cut emissions.

The summit itself opened on Monday 9 November with an early fight over money, as the UN chief, António Guterres, urged world leaders to “get serious” about tackling the crisis after a year of devastating weather extremes. The conference runs for two weeks in Antalya, and scientists say 2026 is on track to become the hottest year on record.

What happens next

Shehbaz Sharif’s address on 11 November will set out Pakistan’s stall. What matters after that is whether the negotiations deliver anything concrete — above all, on finance.

For Pakistan, three things will count as success. First, real movement on climate finance that developing countries can actually access. Second, progress on the Loss and Damage Fund, so that countries hit by disasters are not left waiting years for help. Third, recognition that adaptation — flood defences, early-warning systems, heat-resilient crops — deserves as much attention and money as cutting emissions.

None of that will be decided in a single speech. But Pakistan arrives in Antalya with a story that is hard to ignore: a country that emits less than one per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases, that has lost tens of billions of dollars to floods in four years, and that has still managed one of the fastest solar revolutions on Earth. That is the case Shehbaz Sharif will make — and the world will be listening.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Pakistan’s prime minister attending COP31?

Shehbaz Sharif is attending the Leaders’ Summit of COP31 in Antalya, Türkiye, from 10 to 12 November 2026. He will address the summit on 11 November, urging world leaders to take concrete action on climate change, and will hold bilateral meetings with the Turkish leadership and other world leaders.

What is COP31?

COP31 is the 31st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the UN’s annual climate summit. This year’s conference is hosted by Türkiye in Antalya and opened on 9 November 2026.

Why does Pakistan say it is a victim of climate change?

Pakistan produces less than one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change. The 2022 floods affected around 33 million people and caused more than 30 billion dollars in damage and economic losses, and the 2025 floods cost a further 2.9 billion dollars.

What is Pakistan’s solar boom?

Pakistan has imported around 51 gigawatts of solar panels since 2021, according to the International Energy Agency. Installed distributed solar capacity reached an estimated 28 to 38 gigawatts in 2025, mostly on rooftops, and the number of solar-powered households rose from 3.0 million in 2023 to 7.3 million in 2025.

What does Pakistan want from COP31?

Pakistan wants climate finance for developing countries that is predictable, adequate and accessible, progress on the Loss and Damage Fund agreed at COP27, and far more funding for adaptation and disaster resilience. The UN estimates Pakistan needs about 348 billion dollars between 2023 and 2030 for its climate and development needs.

Conclusion

Shehbaz Sharif’s trip to Antalya is about more than a speech. It is Pakistan’s chance to remind the world that the climate crisis is not shared equally — and to show that even a country battered by floods is finding its own answers, one rooftop solar panel at a time. Whether the world answers with the money Pakistan needs is the question COP31 must now settle.

Sources

• Dawn: https://www.dawn.com/news/2043486/pm-shehbaz-to-leave-for-antalya-today-will-address-cop31-tomorrow
• The Express Tribune: https://tribune.com.pk/story/2639566/pm-shehbaz-to-embark-on-turkiye-visit-today-to-attend-cop31-leaders-summit
• Geo News: https://www.geo.tv/latest/690465-pm-shehbaz-leaves-for-turkiye-today-to-attend-cop31-summit
• Dunya News: https://dunyanews.tv/en/Pakistan/982104-pm-shehbaz-leaves-for-antalya-today-to-attend-cop31-leaders-summit
• Geo News (Pakistan’s solar revolt): https://www.geo.tv/latest/683881-pakistans-solar-revolt
• Pakistan Today: https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2026/11/10/what-pakistan-must-take-to-cop31
• Wikipedia (Pakistan floods): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_flood

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.