‘Climate change an imminent pandemic but no one took it seriously’

Islamabad: Climate change is a pandemic in the making as there is rise in temperature, scarcity of water and un-breathable air in the world, but most governments are not taking it seriously, said Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri.

During an international online webinar ‘State of Climate Governance Post-COVID-19’ organised by the SDPI here, Dr Suleri said novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was a black swan event (low probability very high impact). “We were warned that a novel virus may threaten mankind, but no one took it seriously and now the planet is suffering,” he said.

The SDPI executive director said by learning a lesson from COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic impact, the world must take climate change as a real and serious threat and get prepared for it. He said post coronavirus, the world should continue spending on building resilience against climate change, otherwise the future will be very bleak.

Dr Saleemul Haq, director at the International Centre for Climate Change & Development, Bangladesh, said goal of limiting global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius had become less and less achievable with every single day, as the world was not doing enough for it.

“COVID-19 is just a smaller and faster version of how the impacts of climate change will be. We talk about reducing the steepness of the curve for the virus, the same applies for climate change in a bigger way,” he said.

Stressing the need to act before the situation, the director said acting after the impact would be useless. “The global leaders have an important role to play in decision-making regarding their openness to listening to climate science,” he said, adding that the relative impact of the leaders who take early action is based on science and making difficult decisions such as taken by Taiwan, Germany, and Singapore.

Dr Fahad Saeed, regional climate scientist at Climate Analytics Science, Germany, said currently, the world was releasing 42 gigatonne emissions per year that should reduce to half by 2030 otherwise the world would reach the end of carbon budget within 10-15 years.