Learning from disaster

Pakistan will forever remember 2022 as the year of apocalyptic floods that left one-third of the country underwater. The destruction caused by the floods was so intense, it prompted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Pakistan and call for immediate financial help for the country. Such catastrophic natural disasters are far from over, and in 2023 the world must brace for more to come. One of the most recent UN reports has painted a bleak picture for the future. It says the planet will witness more disasters of a similar scale in the future, and will remain vulnerable to global warming partly due to the fact that humans are not taking enough measures to lower carbon emissions. It includes a study by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which shows that heatwaves will continue more frequently in the 2060s. Pakistan has been a victim of extreme weather patterns for many years now. In 2022, Jacobabad was named as one of the world’s hottest cities when its temperature hit 51 degrees Celsius. It is rather astonishing – and a glaring example of the increasingly volatile climate – that a few months after this, the city was under water. In the same year, the Cholistan desert saw famine-like conditions that forced a large population to migrate to nearby cities in search of water.

The UN seems aware of the challenges faced by the country. It will be hosting a conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan on January 9 in Geneva. Pakistan’s success at COP27 – convincing rich nations to come up with a funding mechanism to help developing countries pay for the losses and damage caused by climate-induced disasters – also shows that developing countries are hellbent on fighting for their rights. The last days of the climate conference saw multiple deadlocks, and there was a time when political pundits assumed that COP27 would not be a success. However, Pakistan finally got its due – a dedicated Loss and Damage Fund.

The UN report also notes that human activity is the biggest reason behind these large-scale disastrous events. It criticizes rich nations’ for reopening old fossil fuel-based power plants to make up for the energy shortages caused by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. There are countless examples that show how world leaders have been complicit in climate change. Former US president Donald Trump remained the biggest climate denialist when he was in power. The former Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, unleashed his destructive deforestation policies on the Amazon rainforest without hesitation. The latest UN report is a warning for those interested in saving the planet. Although Pakistan’s carbon emissions are only one per cent of the total count, its environmental track record is quite poor. The unconstrained growth of private housing societies comes at a massive cost for the environment. We are losing thousands of acres of green land, which is our best weapon in the fight against climate change. If the government is serious about tackling climate change it must realize that climate reparations alone will be insufficient. It needs to become more environmentally conscious at every level of policymaking.