Can climate diplomacy revive SAARC?

SAARC can play an influential role in responding to the impacts of extreme climate events.

Today, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the global climate summits are the only spaces to discuss and declare climate ambitions. This has raised questions about the efficiency of the UNFCCC in delivering the results promised in the Paris Agreement (PA). There are arguments that moving forward with the implementation of the PA, climate diplomacy should focus on specific issues such as loss and damage and climate finance for South Asia, sectors, and geographies that can bring a meaningful difference as well as generate achievable climate ambitions. In this scenario, climate diplomacy could be that igniting force to revive the near-death South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) not only for the economic well-being of this region but also to set an example that other regions across the globe could follow to meet their ambitious climate goals.