‘Karachi may face dust storms, cyclones, smog in coming years’

After deadly heat waves and torrential rains which have struck almost every year recently, because of climate change, Karachi may start to face extreme dust storms like the ones in the Middle East or cyclones and hurricanes like the ones that hit the Americas, experts have warned. 

Speaking at an event titled ‘Environmental Degradation and Climate Change with special focus on Karachi’ held in the city on Wednesday, eminent environmentalist Dr Pervaiz Amir said Karachi was among the cities most likely to be affected by climate change.

“In the days to come, Karachi may face extreme dust storms, devastating cyclones and hurricanes in the Arabian Sea as well as smog,” he said. The talk, which had been organised by Faroozan, an environmental magazine, was attended by government representatives, officials from the environmental watchdog agency, industry representatives, civil society, academicians and environmentalists.

Dr Amir said that the plantation of millions of trees was the only viable option available to mitigate the harmful effects of climate change. Trees should be planted along the entire coastal belt of the country to protect against and reduce the damage from expected hurricanes and storms as temperatures in the Arabian Sea continue to rise.

Speaking about the Karachi, the environmental expert said that the country’s largest city was becoming unliveable with each passing day and warned that toxic smog, which had made the lives of people in Pakistani and Indian Punjab miserable, was not far from Karachi as it was a manmade phenomenon and would soon start occurring in the city.

“I would urge the citizens and the authorities to stop expanding and populating this city or it would be extremely disastrous in the coming years,” he said. “Instead of expanding this city, construct five to six more cities on the coastal belt of the country and divert rural population to those new cities.”

Dr Amir said Pakistan was among the world’s top 10 countries most vulnerable to climate change and its effects. It is facing threats ranging from super floods caused by melting glaciers to devastating tornados to extreme heat waves and deadly droughts to paralysing landslides.

“Extreme water shortages, highly contaminated drinking water and erratic rainfall patterns are some of the other extreme events that are being witnessed in Pakistan, which would also result in more economic destabilisation and miseries for the country,” he said, urging the authorities to make tree planting their topmost priority.

The expert further said that the United States believes that climate change and water shortages are the biggest threat to Pakistan instead of terrorism, institutional failure and any other external threat.

Dr Amir warned that if the situation is not taken seriously right away, Pakistan could descend into anarchy and destabilisation because of extreme weather conditions, natural disasters and environmental pollution which may cause mass migration and disease outbreaks.

“The only way forward for Pakistan to meet these challenges is enhancing tree plantation. I would even recommend closing down all the schools in the country for one year and using all this workforce and students on tree plantation, which is vital for our survival,” he added.

Environment Secretary Baqaullah Unar said that all of Karachi has turned into a giant garbage den where litter is being dumped in every nook and cranny while safe drinking water was not available to its millions of citizens.

“Unfortunately, neither the authorities nor the citizens are ready to improve environmental conditions,” he said. “Industrialists are not ready to establish effluent treatment plants and are emitting deadly waste into the environment, while vehicles are also adding to pollution.”

Unar urged the civil society to raise their voice and pressurise both the legislatures, industrialists, authorities and regulators to enforce the laws and make this city liveable again. He also announced that he would distribute 100,000 plants one hundred plants to make the city green. Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan, Salim-uz-Zaman and Dr Waqar Ahmed also spoke on the occasion.