EDITORIAL: Recent years have seen the advent of monsoon in the country accompanied by a sense of dread, as its deadly impact, exacerbated by climate change, regularly results in devastating floods, loss of life and livelihoods, widespread destruction of infrastructure, property and livestock, and the disruption of entire communities. The ongoing monsoon season has been no different with 178 people losing their lives since July to torrential storms, flooding and landslides. Tragically, of these 92 are children.
Familiar headlines highlighting the washing away of bridges and roads in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan have been making the rounds; while Lahore, along with some other cities in Punjab, has battled record-breaking rainfall, with flooding causing water to enter homes and submerging roads.
In Sindh, meanwhile, heavy damage has been caused to farmlands, which is bound to have adverse consequences for the province’s agricultural output. Notably, according to the National Disaster Management Authority, much of the loss of lives in recent weeks can be attributed to the collapse of houses, highlighting the continued failure of relevant authorities to mandate the construction of rain-resilient structures.
In fact, the dilapidated state of roads, highways, bridges and houses across the country is regularly in the spotlight after every bout of rain. In Karachi, for example, Mayor Murtaza Wahab was moved to question the sustainability and quality of roads in the city, noting that 14 roads that were recently improved under a multi-million rupee World Bank-funded project had been washed away after a spell of torrential rain. Moreover, Sindh’s local government minister has admitted that the province does not have the capacity to protect its infrastructure from the impact of heavy rainfall.
One would have expected that with the growing incidence of climate change-induced calamities, federal and provincial authorities would have made the needed investments in upgrading the quality of infrastructure and drainage systems, improving the disaster response apparatus, strengthening dams and embankments, and implementing comprehensive strategies to mitigate the impact of future disasters.
Our entire approach to climate change-induced events, however, appears to be reactive rather than one based on a more proactive and preventive disposition, failing to anticipate and mitigate potential impacts before they escalate into crises. As has been repeated ad nauseam, we are among the top 10 nations most impacted by climate change, and our vulnerability to extreme weather events is well-documented. Given this, it is criminal that large parts of the country continue to grapple with the lack of attention paid to climate resilience and disaster preparedness.
It is all very well to point out that Pakistan contributes less than one percent to global greenhouse gas emissions, and that countries that are major emitters of carbon need to step up and provide the requisite financial resources to help countries like ours effectively battle the impacts of extreme weather events. However, our own efforts in this regard need to be up to par as well.
The Supreme Court has recently highlighted the authorities’ lack of urgency in formulating policies and plans to effectively counter the impact of climate change. Last month, it lamented the lack of funds allocated to climate change in provincial budgets, while it has also been urging the setting up of the much-delayed Climate Change Authority, a body that should have been established with the passage of the Climate Change Act back in 2017.
The inexplicable seven-year delay underscores the lack of seriousness among the upper echelons, resulting in the population and the economy regularly being pulverised by climate-induced disasters. This lax approach is clearly untenable, and the federal and provincial governments must get serious about formulating and implementing robust environmental policies aimed at mitigating the impact of climate change.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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