Pakistan seeks help with $16 bln flood rebuilding at UN conference

Pakistan and the United Nations are holding a major conference in Geneva on Monday aimed at marshalling support to rebuild the country after devastating floods in what is expected to be a major test case for who pays for climate disasters.
Record monsoon rains and melting glaciers last September displaced some 8 million people and killed at least 1,700 in a catastrophe blamed on climate change.
Most of the waters have now receded but the reconstruction work, estimated at around $16.3 billion, to rebuild millions of homes and thousands of kilometres of roads and railway is just beginning and millions more people may slide into poverty.
Islamabad, whose delegation is led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, will present a recovery “framework” at the conference where United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and French President Emmanuel Macron are also due to speak.
Guterres, who visited Pakistan in September, has previously described the destruction in the country as “climate carnage”.