Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister named among TIME’s ‘100 most influential people of 2023’

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has been named among the ‘100 Most Influential People of 2023’ by Time magazine.

The list has chosen the “influential people” under six categories — artists, icons, pioneers, leaders, titans, and innovators.

After the last year’s devastating floods in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan, Sherry Rehman had undertaken the case of the nations affected by the GreenHouse Gases (GHG) and was quite instrumental in lobbying for the establishment of Loss & Damages Funds at COP27 in Egypt last year in November.

Her efforts were recognised not only at home but also throughout the world and in December she was also named among the “25 Most Influential Women of 2022” announced by the UK’s newspaper Financial Times.

For Time’s 100 most influential people issue, Germany’s state secretary and special envoy for international climate action, Jennifer Morgan wrote Rehman’s profile, highlighting her efforts during cataclysmic floods that hit Pakistan in June last year.

The author recalled that 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.

According to her, Pakistan was 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,” she noted, adding that there, as Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change, she gave a voice to those who had lost everything to the floods. Lavishing praises on the Pakistani minister, Morgan wrote: “Through impassioned speeches and tireless engagement in negotiations, she convinced many of the delegates that the blatant injustice must come to an end.

Big step

“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.”

The American German activist highlighted that this was 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 concluded.

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister and Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also mentioned Sherry Rehman in a tweet saying PPP’s vice president and Climate Change Minister is on Time’s 100 list. While expressing her gratitude to her party chairman Sherry Rehman said she was humbled by his support. “Humbled and overwhelmed. Thank you for leading the way on this journey. And thank you for celebrating and supporting the women in our party, above all else,” she replied in a tweet.

The Time list also included names of Janet Yellen, Joe Biden, Bella Hadid, among several others.