Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman has been featured in Time magazine’s annual 100 most influential people in the world issue. The PPP leader had a daunting task to handle in the wake of the catastrophic floods in 2022, months after she took the charge of the ministry.
“We will need more people like Sherry Rehman along the way,” Germany’s State Secretary Jennifer Morgan wrote in her piece for the magazine.
Among many, the list also includes Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew, Argentine footballer Lionel Messi, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, American model Bella Hadid, and American actor Michael B Jordan.
Rehman’s name has been named among the list of most influential leaders of the world in this year’s issue.
“There are many terrible sides to the climate crisis, but one of the most distressing is that it is hitting hardest those countries that are least responsible for it. Pakistan is responsible for only a fraction of global emissions, but the climate crisis led to more than a third of the country being flooded last year. The water had not yet fully receded when Sherry Rehman arrived in Egypt for COP27, the UN climate summit, in November,” Jennifer Morgan said.
“There, as Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, she gave a voice to those who had lost everything to the floods. Through impassioned speeches and tireless engagement in negotiations, she convinced many of the delegates that the blatant injustice must come to an end. COP27 ended with a historic decision—the world community agreed for the first time to establish new loss and damage funding arrangements to support the most vulnerable countries. This is a big step toward climate justice, but we still have a long way to go. We will need more people like Sherry Rehman along the way,” Morgan, who is also Germany’s special envoy for international climate action, said.
Flash floods triggered by heavy rains displaced more than 33 million people in Pakistan and affected its economy. The country secured more than $10 billion at the Climate Resilience Conference.
At Davos earlier this year, Climate Change Minister Rehman said she does not like silver bullet conversations on climate action and urged the countries to don’t walk away from the pledges they have made to reduce carbon emissions.
“It’s the only real seat belt we have for vulnerable countries facing compounded and serial climate onslaughts. Resilience funding and capacity deficits r very real,centred around human suffering,” she said during a discussion at a session of the World Economic Forum in January this year.
