Written by Jonathan Marriage, Research Officer
“I have seen many humanitarian disasters in the world, but I have never seen climate carnage on this scale.”
The remarks of António Guterres paint a grim picture of the climate disaster that the UN Secretary-General was confronted with during his two day visit to Pakistan back in September last year.
His visit to Pakistan came in the wake of months of record-breaking monsoonal rains and glacier melt, which triggered widespread flooding across the country, leaving one-third of the country’s land area covered by floodwater. By September 2022, the flooding had killed over 1,600 people and affected around 15% of Pakistan’s population, including 7.9 million people who were displaced. Over 2 million homes were either damaged or destroyed, vast swathes of cropland overwhelmed, livestock wiped out, and extensive damage caused to critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and water and hygiene facilities.
At his press conference in Karachi, Guterres was unwavering in his assessment that the situation in Pakistan was an example of the devastating impact that climate change is having on our planet and highlighted the appalling suffering facing those affected by climate related events.
In the months following Guterres’ visit, the impact of this climate event on the country’s humanitarian situation was clear to see. By November 2022, the country was facing massive public health challenges with stagnant floodwaters, reduced access to clean water and widespread displacements aggravating large-scale outbreaks of water- and vector-borne diseases, especially in the worst flood-affected provinces of Sindh and Balochistan. These outbreaks were further compounded by the flood damage caused to the country’s health and hygiene facilities. At the same time, damage to croplands, livestock populations and agricultural production and livelihoods was driving Pakistan towards a fast-deteriorating food security situation with 1.1 million people at risk of sliding from acute food and livelihood crisis (IPC3) situations to humanitarian emergency (IPC4) food security situations.
Six months on from the height of the flooding and many major issues still remain. Although flood waters have receded significantly, 1.8 million people are still living beside contaminated and stagnant flood pools. Outbreaks of Malaria and Acute Watery Diarrhoea remain an ongoing concern in the worst-flood affected areas, as does nutrition and food security with millions of children suffering from malnutrition due to the lack of basic food items, a problem that is being further exacerbated by high levels of inflation that are leaving people in a position where they are unable to purchase sufficient amounts of food. Many other challenges exist, including the long-term disruption to workers livelihoods, continued disruption to schooling, lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, the reduced access to maternity services for women and girls and a heightened risk of them suffering gender-based violence, and a lack of adequate shelter for those who remain displaced and are residing in informal settlements.
Across all these sectors, the humanitarian response has been constrained by a lack of funding. As of March 2023, donors have only managed to fund 52% of the $816 million requested in the Pakistan Floods Response Plan. Additionally, it is now estimated that the flooding has left Pakistan with $14.9bn in damages and $15.2bn in economic losses.
Herein lies the truly brutal and unjust nature of climate change. Despite only being responsible for 0.4% of global emissions since 1959, Pakistan is among the countries most at risk to the impacts of climate change. In contrast, G20 countries, who account for around 80% of global greenhouse gas emission, are at far less risk of suffering from the impacts of climate change.
This issue of climate injustice was at the forefront of the COP27 agenda that took place in November last year. Having been devastated by flooding, Pakistan led the charge at the conference to establish a programme that would see wealthy developed national compensate the developing countries who are falling victim to these climate catastrophes. After intense negotiations, an agreement was reached to establish a loss and damage fund that will see developed countries provide financial assistance to help countries, like Pakistan, deal with the impacts of climate change.
The loss and damage fund is a major step forward for the developing countries who are suffering the impacts of climate change. However, a new climate change report published by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) this week has issued fresh new warnings that drastic action must be taken immediately by developing countries to reduce their climate emissions if they are serious about limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Failure to do so will result in a world of extreme, unpredictable and dangerous weather that will incur high levels of human suffering, particularly upon those living in the developing world. Knowing this, we are able to look at the situation in Pakistan and understand that that it is not, in fact, a one-off extreme weather event, but a scenario which appears every more likely to become “the future”.
References
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