Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the political deputy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Monday called on industrial countries to help Afghanistan in the fight against climate change.

Stanikzai made the remarks at a conference in Kabul titled “From Isolation to Inclusion – Afghanistan’s Urgent Call for Climate Action,” which was held on the day the UN climate talks kicked off in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku.

"Our demand from the United Nations, the great powers, the rich countries and the countries from which gasses come is to help us improve our environment and serve our people," Stanikzai said.

Stefan Rodriguez, the Chief of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), also said that climate change has forced some Afghans to live in tents as natural disasters regularly occur in the country.

Rodriguez, however, said that after three years, Afghanistan has now gained access to financial mechanisms in the environmental sector and some institutions are ready to resume their incomplete projects in Afghanistan.

The organizers of the conference warned that if the international community does not step up to assist Afghanistan in the fight against climate change, there will be dire consequences.

They called on COP29 in Baku to keep the issue of fighting climate change in Afghanistan away from political issues and work with their financial and technical partners to prevent the spread of negative effects of climate change in the country.

An Afghan delegation will attend the upcoming UN climate change summit COP29 in Azerbaijan scheduled to take place from Monday, November 11.

According to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’s (IEA) foreign ministry spokesman, Abdul Qahar Balkhi, said “delegation of the Afghan government will be in Baku".

It was not immediately clear in what capacity the delegation would participate at COP29, but sources indicated it would have observer status.

Afghanistan is ranked as the country sixth most vulnerable to climate change and IEA authorities have pushed to participate in COP summits, saying their political isolation shouldn't bar them from international climate talks.

Having tried and failed to attend UN climate change summits in Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, this year an invitation from COP29 hosts Azerbaijan came through.

Officials from the country's National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) have repeatedly said climate change should not be politicized and called for environment-related projects put on hold due to the IEA’s takeover to be reinstated.

"Climate change is a humanitarian subject," deputy NEPA head Zainulabedin Abid said in a recent interview with AFP.

"We have called on the international community not to relate climate change matters with politics."

Among the poorest countries in the world after decades of war, Afghanistan is particularly exposed to the effects of climate change, which scientists say is spurring extreme weather.

Drought, floods, land degradation and declining agricultural productivity are key threats, the UN development agency's representative in Afghanistan, Stephen Rodriques, said in 2023.

Flash floods in May killed hundreds and swamped swaths of agricultural land in Afghanistan, where 80 percent of people depend on farming to survive.

The amount of finance provided to developing countries to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change is far short of the $359 billion a year needed even after the biggest annual increase yet, a U.N. report on Thursday showed.

Funding from the developed world hit $28 billion in 2022 after a $6 billion rise, the most in any one year since the U.N. Paris deal in 2015 to try and limit the impacts of global warming, the annual U.N. Environment Programme report said, according to Reuters.

Countries are preparing to meet in Azerbaijan at COP29 from Nov. 11-22 for the next round of climate talks in a year marked by extreme weather aggravated by climate change, including floods in Bangladesh and drought in Brazil.

How much money richer countries agree to send to developing countries to help them cope is expected to be central to the talks in Baku.

"Climate change is already devastating communities across the world, particularly the most poor and vulnerable. Raging storms are flattening homes, wildfires are wiping out forests, and land degradation and drought are degrading landscapes," UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen said in a statement.

"Without action, this is a preview of what our future holds and why there simply is no excuse for the world not to get serious about adaptation, now."

Adaptation finance covers activities including building flood defences against rising sea levels, planting trees in urban areas to protect against extreme heat and ensuring infrastructure can withstand hurricanes.

In addition to the finance, countries need guidance on how to use it.

While 171 countries have a policy, strategy or plan in place, the quality varies, and a small number of fragile or conflict-affected states have none, the report said.

A separate U.N. report last month said the world was on track to exceed its goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, opens new tab (2.7 Fahrenheit) above the pre-industrial average by 2050, and instead head for warming of 2.6-3.1C.