Why is Pakistan facing Worst Climate Change While Contributing Less Than 1% of Global Emissions?

Floods Ravage Pakistan, Which Contributes Less Than 1% of Global Emissions

As enormous floods continue to batter the country, Pakistan has declared a national emergency. Since June, the death toll has surpassed 1,000. Over 33 million people have been forced to flee their homes. The floods were classified as a major climatic disaster by Pakistan's top climate authority. Floodwaters have destroyed homes, highways, and bridges. Survivors say they have lost everything in floods across Pakistan, where some places have received 600 percent more rain than usual. Pakistan's foreign minister, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, has asked for international assistance to aid in the recovery from the floods.

Pakistan contributes very little to the overall carbon footprint, yet it is plagued by natural calamities. As the global climate emergency continues to wreak havoc, Europe is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years, and China is experiencing an unprecedented heat wave that has dried up rivers and lakes, the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, has urged residents to evacuate the city as it braces for more flooding.

The situation in Pakistan is worse by the day, and the prime minister has already stated that more than half of Pakistan and four corners of Pakistan are underwater. The overflowing flood has destroyed the roads, rails, and bridges, and the only way to reach the displaced and afflicted people is via helicopter. The army has been called in throughout Pakistan for assistance, but Pakistan has been experiencing an economic crisis for the previous several months, making it difficult for Pakistan to conduct relief and rescue operations across the country.

Apart from that, the worst we've seen is now taking place. Pakistan has been in a political crisis since April when Imran Khan was deposed from office through constitutional measures such as a vote of no confidence.

This year's heat waves in Pakistan were the worst on record. More than 50 degrees Celsius were reported, and an unusual monsoon has been occurring at some intervals since mid-June. There is a climate emergency. We saw snowfall in Ziarat, a town not more than 100 kilometers from Balochistan's provincial capital, in August.

There is already a debate in Pakistan about how Pakistan contributes less than 1% of emissions while being on the receiving end of this climate problem. The elder generation claims that such rains and floods have not occurred in the last 30 to 35 years. The danger now is that God forbid, this sort of severe rain may persist in the future due to a shifting weather trend.

With slightly over one degree of warming, the globe is out of balance, and no matter what we do, this is now irrevocable. What we can do is, of course, prevent it from growing much worse, because the heat waves and floods that we're witnessing all over the world are now 30 to 100 times more likely as a result of the climate problem, and they're happening earlier each year. They are becoming more severe, and, of course, they are lasting longer.

Rich nations must reduce their emissions as near to zero as feasible by 2030 so that the rest of the world can make room for those who are the least responsible. However, we are now on track for a warming of little over 2.7 degrees Celsius at most, and affluent countries, from the United States to the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, to the European Union, are ramping up a major new wave of fossil fuels. It's a gold mine for fossil fuel firms, who have generated two trillion dollars in profit over the previous three decades and are publicly wagering that they can make trillions more.

The wealthy will use their riches to seek safety, leaving the poor to perish. Balochistan has been impacted the worst when it comes to the poorest places in Pakistan. It is the biggest and poorest of the provinces. Earlier this month, the US Secretary of State tweeted. "We stand behind Pakistan in these difficult times and provide our assistance to flood victims," he added. In addition to a hundred thousand dollars in urgent help, the United States announced a million dollars to improve resilience against natural disasters, and we will continue to collaborate to prevent the long-term effects of the climate catastrophe." It's beyond ridiculous. It's a crime. The world's poor are hanging on a thread, and you may recall that the United States promised $100 billion in climate funding in 2009. Thirteen years later, that goal has not been realized, and the amount of what is now required is estimated to be in the billions of dollars. Rich countries are just abandoning the majority of the planet.

According to research produced by the Climate Policy Initiative, Africa is only receiving 12 percent of the funding it requires to manage the effects of climate change. According to the paper, African countries require a quarter-trillion dollars per year to transition to renewable energy and address the consequences of climate change, but funding in 2020 was just $29.5 billion. The response asset is a drop in the bucket, and increasingly, even the amount of money offered is frequently related to loans. As a result, it increases debt.

Returning to Pakistan, it is expected to pay $6.5 billion in debt repayments over the following three years. Its debt totals hundreds of billions of dollars. We witnessed what happened in Sri Lanka with debt repayments when the government just told people not to eat or to consume less food. The truth is that we are living in a time of perpetual and many crises, all of which feed into one another and exacerbate these injustices.

What we urgently want is for the world's wealthiest countries to live up to their obligations. There is no lack of funds. We can observe this simply by looking at how much wealth is pulled from the worldwide site. Given that the wealth of the world's greatest billionaires has increased by a trillion or more dollars in the previous year alone, what we need today is something akin to a global green; a new agreement, a new plan.  Richest nations have to give the funds required by global sites not only to deal with the effects of climate change but also to deal with their ability to adapt to this catastrophe, which is, of course, limited.

What we require is political resolve to take action. It is now up to ordinary people to organize moves, and hold our leaders and corporations accountable for what they do or do not do.