The Climate Crisis: Is Pakistan the Global Wake-Up Call We Need?
A crisis oft-ignored by Western media sources, Reea sheds light on the horrifying effects of climate change currently being felt throughout Pakistan.
As a country not situated in the West, Pakistan has become yet another victim of the Eurocentric lens that seems to categorise non-Western countries and their crises as secondary to those of the Western world. As such, it is unsurprising that the climate crisis ensuing in the country has not been ‘trending’ within mainstream media, but has been merely a fleeting story that has been at best ignored and at worst considered ‘not our problem’, by audiences.
Since June, floods have hit the country at a tremendously cruel pace, with rainfall well above average in most regions. The Sindh province has seen rainfall reaching levels 508% above average,[1] with one site in particular reporting an increase to 1,288 millimetres in August, compared to the monthly average of 46mm.[2] To continue with these disastrous statistics, the UN has estimated that over 33 million Pakistanis have been affected by the floods – for context, that’s half of the UK’s population. More than 500,000 houses have been entirely ruined or damaged, 3.6 million acres of crops are now destroyed and at least 1,136 people have died since June.[3] The climate minister has revealed that one-third of Pakistan has been completely submerged by this historic flooding. Sindh in particular has been affected so harshly that emergency workers are struggling to reach those that are in dire need of help.
Refugee children playing near the water supply pump at Kheshgi refugee village, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province – UNHCR/Qaisar Khan Afridi
Pakistan contributes less than 1% to the greenhouse gases that add to global warming. It is also home to over 7,200 glaciers – its northern region is sometimes referred to as the ‘third pole’, because it contains more glacial ice than anywhere else outside of the polar regions. As a result of global warming, more than 3,000 lakes have formed from glaciers melting in Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan and KPK regions, 33 of which are at risk of bursting and placing another 7 million people in danger.[4]
Seventeen-year-old Yusuf explains that “People have the right to be angry. Companies are still extracting fossil fuels from Balochistan, but people there have just lost their homes and have no food or shelter”.[5] Dr Fahad Saeed, a member of the Climate Science and Impacts team, claims that this is “absolutely a wake-up call” to governments that have promised to tackle climate change at UN climate conferences. He explains that “all of this is happening when the world has warmed by 1.2C – any more warming than that is a death sentence for many people in Pakistan".[6] Dr Saeed is correct; any more warming and we will indeed be witnessing the deaths of an immeasurable amount of innocent people. These will be people who live simple lives, those who don’t enjoy the products of fossil fuels in the way we do within the Western world. The pleasures we experience are at their expense.
There need to be calls not only for climate action, but a wider awareness of the consequences of global warming that are faced by countries which are more often than not side-lined, and even ignored, by eurocentrism – especially by mainstream media.
[1] Pakistan Meteorological Department
[2] UN's World Meteorological Organization
[3] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-62728678
[4] UN Development Programme
[5] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62758811
[6] Ibid.
Later this month, the University’s Paksoc will be organising a Dawat, as a fundraiser to help those affected by the floods. For updates on how and when to attend, follow @bristol.paksoc on Instagram