Daily Times

Pakistan has been crowned the hottest of them all. Or, rather the Sindhi city of Nawabshah has. For it now holds the dubious record of possibly recording the highest ever global temperature for April: a scorching 50.2 Celsius (or 122.4 Fahrenheit).

This is no laughing matter. Not for the city’s 1.1million-strong population. Not for the PPP government that has been at the helm in Sindh for the last eight years. Not for the people of Pakistan who had their country appear on the list of the world’s 10 most vulnerable nations in terms of the Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI), taking into account annual averages from 1997-2016. Indeed, back in 2015, Karachi suffered some 1,200 heat-related fatalities over a five-day period. Let that sink in for a moment. The same timespan also left up to 400,000 reeling from both heatstroke and heat exhaustion. With Ramazan just around the corner, the implications could not be clearer. Indeed, the removal of public water drinking fountains in Karachi played a role in the huge death toll.

Pakistan’s climate-related problems are manifold. At the global level, the most vulnerable are developing countries; typically, from the lower-middle income bracket. At the micro-level, too, poverty is both an important yet unwelcome consideration. The state has failed to get a grip on loadshedding, despite having battled it for just over a decade. This naturally takes a toll on the national exchequer. But, moreover, it impacts the chronically under-privileged. Such as, those in urban sprawls who already struggle with inflated energy prices and simply cannot afford the additional burden of a generator or UPS. Then there is the question of rural-urban migration. For no longer are those living without access to basic amenities restricted to the countryside. Now in cities across the nation, thousands are in severe dire straits. Without the luxury of even mud houses, they make do with sheets or cardboard to fashion some kind of shelter.

Yet the real and dangerous challenges facing Pakistan go beyond soaring temperatures. In recent years, the country has been plagued by climate abnormalities, which are now sadly becoming anything but. From earthquakes to floods to heatwaves and everything in between. And it is time that the civil-military leadership finally wakes up to this. For the Pakistani people have had enough rude awakenings on this front to last several lifetimes.  *

Published in Daily Times, May 3^rd 2018.