‘Most of Pakistani women prone to hydro disasters’

The 14th edition of the three-day Karachi Literature Festival, which concluded on Sunday, lacked indigenous voices in most of its panel discussions, especially those on climate change.

During a panel discussion on ‘Climate Justice and Embedded Injustices’, investigative journalist Zoha Tunio, who has a special interest in climate change reporting, rightly pointed out how in discourses related to climate change and climate justice we talk in silos.

“I don’t think I’m the right person to be speaking on behalf of a woman who has given birth in floodwaters,” she pointed out. “I’m not a girl who’s impacted in a way that she can’t go to school again.”

She said that as an impact of a climate disaster, it is very unlikely that her family’s first reaction would be to marry her off because she is vulnerable or a liability.

She added that if you are seeing one name over and over on a particular subject, there are other experts out there as well. “Make an effort to find them.”

Speaking on climate injustices, Pakistan Mohaliati Tahaffuz Movement founder Ahmad Shabbar said demolitions were carried out around the Gujjar Nullah on the pretext of flooding, but garbage still ends up inside the storm water drain as it used to.

He pointed out that the Nasla Tower was demolished because it was encroaching upon public space, but other residential and commercial towers illegally constructed over reclaimed pieces of land in the DHA are not even touched.

He said the DHA has no legal right to reclaim lands in sea and creeks. The National Institute of Oceanography also has no record of who reclaimed these lands, while there are six towers already constructed and inhabited on the reclaimed land, and 33 others are under construction, he added.

“Do we realise what impact it will have on the sea belt and on Port Qasim?” he asked. “Justice has to be equal all around.”

Shabbar said Pakistan is especially vulnerable to climate change impacts, which include high temperatures, riverine and coastal flooding, and sea level intrusion, and we have pollution and environmental degradation that are making air and water unsafe for humans, especially for the vulnerable communities.

Maha Husain, the session’s moderator, is the team lead for the Climate and Environment Initiative and a research associate at the Research Society of International Law, Pakistan. She spoke on the idea of privilege and class.

“When we talk about the adoptive potential of these communities, there’s a certain class who’re able to buy masks to protect themselves from the smog, who’re able to install air purifiers in their homes, who in the summer are able to sit inside with air conditioners, but we have to recognise that most communities in Pakistan, those most vulnerable experiencing the impacts of climate change the most might not have access to these things.”

Journalist Afia Salam said population is also the fundamental issue that leads to climate injustices. She said if children are dying, it is the issue of maternal health.

Afia said that repeated pregnancies are giving birth to weaker children. Climate change in Pakistan is viewed as a disaster but not as a scientific phenomenon, and women are the least equipped to deal with it, she added.

She said that half the population of the country is mostly prone to hydro disasters, and asked how many women are culturally allowed to swim.

Women for most of their reproductive life are pregnant, and when there is the onrush of water, they are asked to get out of the way, she added.

“How’re they going to get away? How many of them? How easily can they do that? They have other children in tow — usually there’s a baby in the lap, there’s a baby in the belly and there are four or six children with them.”

She said that this is a burden on them that they would not like to carry with their lives. These women are supposed to carry the water, which might be a culturally embedded injustice, and there is climate change, there is water scarcity, so who is going to bear that burden on their bodies, she added.

Zoha explained that climate justice works in two ways, saying that there is inter-country responsibility, which is to say that high gas emitting countries are more responsible for climate change as opposed to lower emitting countries, and then there are climate injustices within countries. “Existing inequalities in Pakistan are going to be exacerbated because of that.”

She said that at COP 27, for the first time in 30 years, there was an intent by developed countries that since they have impacted the planet the most, they have a certain responsibility towards developing countries.

However, existing inequalities within our own system need to be addressed, she added. She also said that developed countries have the intent and political will, so the next important thing is to establish systems and see how there can be monetary help, in what percentage and to whom, “even within developing countries there are a lot of disagreements about who deserves this money the most”.

Shabbar pointed out that Pakistan’s relation with the environment is very deep. He explained how our identities, cultures, economy and politics are somehow based on the environment.

He explained how we allow the establishment of mega hotels on the bank of rivers in mountainous regions, and then see what happens to them during the floods. Likewise, he continued, when we give deep sea access to China and restrict access to local fishermen, there comes a movement like that of Gwadar. “Justice has its own forms. We need to really identify how that translates on the ground.”