KARACHI: “Climate change is affecting our country’s economy and health, floods are taking place, glaciers are melting and less developed countries have different reasons to cause climate change as compared to more developed countries. There are several factors that are all working together to push the current climate change,” said experts during the 10th ZU Dialogues, titled “Global Warming: From Climate Change to Climate Crisis”, organized by the Ziauddin University.
The session was attended by the renowned environmentalist Ashiq Ahmad Khan, Scientific Representative of EvK2CNR; an environmental lawyer Ahmad Rafay Alam, Yale World Fellow and partner at Saleem, Alam & Company; an award-winning environmental journalist Rina Saeed Khan, Chairperson, Islamabad Wildlife Management Board; and Prof. Dr. Abbas Zafar, Dean, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ziauddin University. The event was hosted by Dr. Zulfiqar Umrani, Director ORIC, Ziauddin University.
While talking about climate change and what it means to the world, Ashiq Ahmad Khan, said that climate change is something that is evident to all; as you can see this unbearable winter in Pakistan this year. The places where we saw temperatures in low degrees have reached below zero degrees. As a field man roaming all over the country, I no longer see the beauty of the nature due to climate change. The nature is dead now. One good example is that of Misgar in Hunza, which had really excellent pastures, that pasture is watered by a neighbouring glacier that is melting away; animal life is now disappearing, and a lot has changed as a result of climate change.
“When I look at the reasons for it, there are several factors that are all working together to push current climate change to the point where it’s a climate risk due to a lack of governance and effort. I believe that if we combine ecosystem restoration with research and business knowledge, we can save what’s left”, he further added.
As COP26 was deafeningly silent, there was no firm agreement on who would pay for the calamities, on this Ahmad Rafay Alam, explained that the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change which was signed in 1992 is a major international legal document that regulates how we deal with the challenges of climate crises. Fundamental to UNFCCC, is the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. This was repeated in UNFCCC recognizing historical equities by developing nations to less-developed nations.
“The UNFCCC’s objectives were to stabilize greenhouse gas submissions. Greenhouse gasses, things that we take from the ground to burn for our energy, are responsible for increasing temperatures in the climate crisis. The UNFCCC stabilizes greenhouse gas submissions so that there wouldn’t be any dangerous damage to the global ecosystem. We are now at a 420-part carbon concentration in the atmosphere, a level never seen for the last 20 to 25 million years, which is longer than human beings have been on earth. We are approximately 1 to 1.1 degrees warmer than we were before the industrial revolution, we are already witnessing this year floods in Europe; forest fires in the United States; heat waves in Canada that have killed hundreds of people. Heat wave in Pakistan last year was declared a national emergency. So, due to climate change we see forest fire in the Arctic for the first time in recorded history, and human beings have plastics in their bodies and only at 1 degree of warming, there is no safe place. There have been approximately 150 million of deaths in Asian and African cities due to air pollution including smoggy Lahore experiencing air pollution caused by the greenhouse gas,” he further added.
The climate change, we see on the national agenda and on the media aren’t similar, Rina Saeed Khan said in her statement. She said: “to the contrary I believe it is adequately reported in our media. What happened in 2010, we had something called super floods that hit Pakistan, there was unprecedented rainfall up in the high mountain Karakorum; water came rushing down because Pakistan is at an incline from 0 meters to 8600 level meters which is the top of K2. This topic of climate change used to be in some back stories of the newspaper but now it’s on the front pages. In Islamabad we faced unreasonably long summers due to changes in climate. Last year I organized an event on climate change. We mobilized students, transgender, citizens and people from NGOs to march in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.”
“As you can see, air pollution in Pakistan’s crowded cities is putting people’s health and the environment in jeopardy. As you could see, during COVID peak, when there were no automobiles on the roads, the sky began to appear blue and clear. The study found that due to COVID, all factories were stopped, machinery was not used as much, automobiles were less on the road, and airplanes were not flying, and the world air was pure and clear. It’s a painful process that UNFCCC doesn’t produce results overnight but there is no actual alternative system or way of getting all the countries to come together.’’
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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