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Monday, August 19, 2013
Climate change brings another flood onslaught in PakistanKARACHI: Climate change has brought another onslaught of devastating floods in Pakistan; thus testing government machinery, capability, and preparedness to tackle natural disasters, according to environmentalists.
President National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH) Mohammad Naeem Qureshi said global warming causes climate change, a serious issue the world is facing, including Pakistan. Referring to a UN report, Qureshi said that glaciers in South Asia had melted, causing floods in Pakistan and India time and again. But still, the governments have been negligent. “Almost all governments since last 15 years have shown non-serious attitude toward environment conservation and protection. Although the Musharraf and PPP governments formed environment polices, they failed to implement them is true sense, causing tremendous losses due to environment onslaughts.”
Qureshi added that Pakistan economy faces losses worth Rs 1 billion on a daily basis due to environment damages and degradations; hence, a full-fledged federal environment ministry should immediately be established to tackle climate change, global warming and other environment issues with full might. He flayed merger of Sindh Environment Ministry with Livestock and Forest Department, and said that a separate and strong environment ministry should be ensured in Sindh by separating wildlife and forest sectors from it likewise Punjab, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces.
Sindh Agricultural and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organisation (SAFWCO) representative and noted environmentalist, Waheed Jamali, was of the view that climate change is a serious threat to the third world. “Although it is a global problem, its impacts will not be felt equally across our planet. Developing countries, including Pakistan, are much more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
He added that Pakistan is already a resource-poor country with a fast-growing population, low natural resource base and unfavourable local socio-cultural conditions, and climate change is an additional stress for this country.
He argued that according to a recently published index, Pakistan was ranked 12th on the list of countries that were most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. “In day-to-day life, climate change is not easily distinguished from climate variability, which is happening with or without global warming factors. Thus, it is imperative to make the general public aware of climate change, and its impacts in such a way that they can contribute to reduce its adverse impacts. People should be at the centre of development, and any agenda will be futile if greater public support is unavailable,” Jamali said.
He said that besides many other challenges, climate change is emerging as perhaps the greatest environmental challenge of the Pakistan causing floods, droughts and increasing hunger, poverty, displacement, soil degradation, desertification and deforestation.
Jamali said floods in 2010 and 2011 proved that absence of a comprehensive land use plan can lead quite literally to a disaster: socially, economically and environmentally. Therefore, land-use planning is an important instrument in disaster risk management.
Deputy Director Climate Change Division of Federal Cabinet Secretariat and noted environment expert Mohammad Saleem also spoke to PPI. He said changing weather pattern and rising earth temperatures are major causes of torrential and erratic rains that cause flash floods. “Not only intensity has increased but timing of the rains too has changed. Global warming is likely to be make extreme events worse. For example, when there is more heat in the atmosphere it holds more water, and therefore floods in places like Pakistan are heavier.”
We cannot pot the blame entirely on nature for its fury in shape of extreme weather events like floods. In other words, man-made climate change was a major cause of devastating floods in Pakistan this year, shifting monsoon rains away from flood defences, and into areas of the country incapable of dealing with the inundation, he added.
Saleem said since these events were not routine in Pakistan, there was neither mechanism nor any policy level intervention to cope with such disasters. Now, different policies, such as National Climate Change Policy, National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP), National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy are ready and are being enforced in collaboration with different stakeholders in governmental and non-governmental sectors to build up Pakistan’s climate resilience and ability to deal with vagaries of climate change.”
He argued that there is strong need to educate people about these natural disasters and that is why, they are becoming frequent in Pakistan. Educating masses about natural disasters and building up their preparedness at educational institutions can be of great help to minimize the damages of disasters. Media can play its due role in this regard as without its support, awareness cannot be boosted, he noted.
He said places that are vulnerable to climate change-induced natural disasters must have a proper flood and weather forecasting warning system in place and their residents should be educated on how to deal with crisis situations. ppi
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk