Intricate web of Climate Change

Despite the writing on the wall, many still cling on to their consistency and keep denying that our environmental issues are part of a vicious cycle of issues. Issues that won’t go away, returning time and again with a vengeance fueled by our arrogant ignorance. 

Pakistan is ranked as one of the top ten countries most affected by climate change. The ‘affect’ is not a hypothetical scenario in the distant future. It is our present that can feel the impact and much more in store for the near future, if we continue at this pace. 

Our agri based economy is at the front line. The backbone of Pakistan’s economy is made of agriculture, contributing 21% to the GDP. Climate change has a direct impact, from lowered yields to a drastic change in the overall cropping patterns. As estimated loss of 30% in production is expected in the coming years. For anyone with even the basic knowledge of how agriculture production works, the recent disturbed patterns of rain should be a sign enough to start considering climate change and related environmental issues a considerable problem. 

The buck doesn’t stop at agriculture. Climate change affects the determinants of the rest of the food cycle, health and even the social fabric. 

Globally, each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than the preceding one, since 1850. From the last few years we have been breaking the wrong kind of record, with each passing year being declared as the hottest year so far, further accelerating the problems. 

As per a recent report of WHO, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year due to malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress between 2030 and 20150. These are ailments that we have already found remedies for, however, their climate change induced intensity is still capable of creating havoc. This is something that we have witnessed in Pakistan. The consecutive monsoon floods of 2014, 2015 and 2016 are a permanent fixture of our memories. Zahid Hamid, Minister for Law & justice & climate change in March 2017 shared with a senate session that these floods affected a total of 4.5 million people and claimed 1,029 lives. 

 My realization of climate change as a human rights issue happened, when I tagged along as a volunteer with her team of doctors to Muzaffargarh. A city located in south-western Punjab, ravished by floods in 2010. The physical destruction was just the tip of the ice berg. Their crops were destroyed which translated into the of their debt cycle. In addition to this there was wide spread diseases and infections. Like an example out of a text book, the most vulnerable were, women, children and the elderly. The fact that countries like ours have a very weak health infrastructure system, coping with the aftermaths of such disasters becomes a systems failure in itself. 

Climate change feeds the poverty cycle. The major chunk of a household’s money goes to provide for the basic needs. Food and medicine takes biggest pie size. Both these aspects share a direct relation with climate change. These people then don’t have the money to invest in their children’s education and thus, with every generation history repeats itself. 

Migration is another that is connected with this matrix. Both local and global. Locally, after these mass scale calamities, given that the rehabilitation process is itself fractured; people move towards the more established urban centres. Adding more pressure of the already stretched resources of these centres. 

On the international front, this is going to add to the issue of brain drain. As per the International Organization for Migration’s forecasts some 25 million to 1 billion people will be pushed to migrate due to environmental changes globally by 2050, from countries like Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and China etcetera. This aspect of the issue is still not explored within the country to factor in its own associated set of issues. 

Climate change and its consequences are not an imported subject. They are our own realities and we need to own up to. Nature always wins. There is no defying its laws so we might as well team up with her for our own good, instead of picking a fight that we are bound to loose.  

The article was originally written for Newsline Magazine. This is the unedited version.