Over the last three centuries, unregulated capitalist development has led to the maximum exploitation of natural resources, leading to a situation where an environmental disaster is likely to overtake humanity. Over-exploitation of hydrocarbon resources and a continuing depletion of the forest reserves have caused an increase in global temperatures leading to a faster melting of glaciers, raising of the sea levels and widespread droughts.
What is at risk is the future of mankind. What is needed is to review the popular concepts of development that ties it with consumption. Next week begins the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP 15), where an attempt would be made to fix greenhouse gas emission targets for the biggest polluters that include the highly industrialised countries and those about to join the elite club.
Such is the hunch for development in the advanced western countries and China, Brazil and India that whatever targets are likely to be agreed upon, would be much below what is really needed to save the globe. With the current levels of production and consumption in the developed countries, there is a possibility of much of the world's natural capital to be exhausted and the ecology irreversibly damaged in the process.
While no country will escape the consequences, the Third World countries are to suffer the most. To draw the world's attention to the bleak future that Maldives faces, President Mohamad Nasheed resorted to a dramatic gesture in October. He held an under-sea meeting of his cabinet, surrounded by multicolored fishes. This was meant to be an SOS indicating that the country which comprises many small islands would be under seawater by the end of the century, if urgent measures were not undertaken to save the climate.
In yet another symbolic gesture on Friday, the Nepalese Cabinet would meet at the base camp of Mount Everest at 17,192 feet from sea level. Nepal faces the threat of fast-receding glaciers that are creating numerous lakes that could overflow to destroy agricultural lands and human habitations.
All cabinet members, fit enough to travel to the high altitude, would be examined by a medical team for fitness before they fly to the base camp by helicopter. The purpose is to draw the world's attention to climate degradation, ahead of the COP15. Among the South Asian countries likely to suffer most from the calamitous effects of global warming is Bangladesh. Here, every year, a million people, living along the rivers, are displaced and thousands of acres of agricultural land devoured by the rivers.
Meanwhile, an annual one-meter sea level rise will inundate more areas displacing more than 13 million people and cutting into the crucial rice crop, if remedial measures, commensurate with the situation, are not taken. The drought in India, this year, was more variable than ever before in recent recorded history, causing the worst drought in 37 years.
The disaster brought down production of crops that included rice, groundnuts and sugar cane. The last was the most badly hit crop and the shortage contributed to the rise in the world price of sugar. With green pastures becoming barren, thousands of villagers were forced to sell their cattle in Northern Maharashtra. Scores of thousands from the rest of the country had to migrate from their villages.
In Pakistan, which already suffers from scarcity of water, global warming could play havoc with the agricultural ecosystem. This would be disastrous for a country where agriculture is the backbone of the economy. A greed for profits has led to uncontrolled and unsustainable cutting of forests, which conserve water, stop erosion and reduce flooding, dangerous for agriculture.
The powerful local elite continue to bypass the rules while cutting trees and turning them into logs, by installing automatic sawing machines right in the heart of the forests in Swat, Dir and Kaghan. Combined with the effects of global warming, the overkill in the jungles is likely to lead to large-scale deforestation.
This would be particularly harmful in a country, which has less than five- percent land under forest, as opposed to 30 percent for the world and 10 percent recommended by the WWF. From the skyrocketing prices of Chilghoza, which was once a popular dry fruit that a large majority of Pakistanis could afford, one can realise the gravity of the issue of deforestation in the Sulaiman mountain range.
The thousand years old Juniper forests of Balochistan, which constitute an ecological and cultural treasure, are similarly under threat. So are the mangroves in the coastal areas of Balochistan and Sindh, one of the largest found in an arid climate. They continue to be depleted as the local communities use mangroves as fuelwood and fodder, while in urban areas, they are being removed for developmental activities on the coast.
This, combined with the shortage of water in the Indus at the delta, has led the sea to make inroads into the adjoining districts of Sindh, causing wastage of thousands of acres of agricultural land. Pakistan needs to develop a sustainable, workable, research-based, and people-friendly forest policy. With one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, Pakistan's forests are in urgent need of protection and conservation.
Pakistani cities, which are already badly polluted, are likely to suffer more from the effects of global warming. Neglect of public transport forces many in big cities to rely on their own motorbikes or cars. Encouragement provided by the Shaukat Aziz administration to banks to lend money for the purchase of cars has led to a glut in private vehicles. This has further increased the level of pollution in cities like Karachi and Lahore.
In the former city, places like Bolton Market, Burns Road and Empress Market have a high- density of carbon in the air, which is growing day by day. With increased vehicular traffic causing traffic problems in Lahore, the government has decided to widen the road along the canal, cutting thousands of trees in the process. This is no solution, as within a couple of years, traffic jams would reach the same level and no space would be left for widening the roads.
Why can't we have an efficient public transport system and discourage superfluous private cars through prohibitive taxation? There is a need to revise the concepts that production and consumption alone measure development. Instead, human well being has to be given proper weightage in the formulation of economic policies.