Sindh’s cotton growers had heard of swarms of ‘Makkar’ (locusts) ravaging grain and pomegranate crops in Balochistan earlier in the summer. Government officials who visited them and surveyed safety precautions told them that unseasonal rain in Balochistan had given the locusts ideal conditions to thrive, and with this fresh impetus, they would soon be heading to Sindh.
The fortunes of Sindh’s cotton growers depend entirely on the output from their crop. They take on debt to sow their fields every year, and with whatever profit they make, they try to pay it off and meet their other needs at the same time. So they began to grow increasingly concerned by the day, and continued to send distress signals to authorities. If the crop were to fall to the locusts, they would face certain destitution. And so it was. When the locusts eventually hit Sindh’s cotton fields, acres and acres of cotton were devoured in minutes, all the farmers’ hard work undone by cruel luck.
Sindh accounts for about 23 percent of the yield of Pakistan’s prized export: cotton. According to experts, Sindhi cotton is more sought after than Punjabi cotton because of its “better length, colour and longer staple.” Cotton growers now face an uncertain future, with the government unlikely to compensate them for the damages they have suffered. The economy, already reeling, will take yet another significant blow.
Plagues of locusts in Pakistan are rare. The last such outbreak in Pakistan was back in the 1990s. However, prolonged dry spells followed by heavy rains nurture locust populations, but as erratic climate patterns continue, future invasions could occur more frequently. And as climate change is a global phenomenon, such events will have a transnational significance. This case is a prime example.
These locusts originated from the shores of Eritrea, and then made their way to Yemen. Currently besieged by the ‘Islamic coalition’ and facing a major humanitarian disaster, authorities in Yemen could not control the pests. The swarm grew larger and made its way to Saudi Arabia, then onto Iran, from where, despite a massive control operation, they entered Balochistan, and according to the locals, ravaged pomegranate, watermelon and grain crops in the province, although government officials dispute that claim. They then made their way into Sindh.
Climate change may increasingly manifest itself as Mother Nature’s wrath upon human beings, but is entirely of man’s own making. The British carved the existing canal system in what was then United Punjab in late 19th and early 20th centuries, enabling the cultivation of millions of acres of land and ushering in an era of prosperity for these people but irreversibly altering the ecological framework of the region. What was once uncultivable, arid wasteland could now draw water from the rivers.
Expansion of these canal systems and the construction of barrages upstream on the Indus in the 20th century rang the death knell for the coastal ecosystems on the Indus delta which once thrived, but now lay in ruins with significant loss of biodiversity. Encroachment of seawater into where once was the delta rendered land barren and has submerged ancient trading ports, displacing those who used to ply their trade there.
Climate change related events in the past decade have threatened to completely topple the existing order. The superfloods of 2010, the heat wave that gripped Karachi and other parts of Sindh in 2015, the locust invasion, and, and record rainfall across the province this monsoon cannot be viewed in isolation. They represent a pattern, albeit an erratic one, of changing weather patterns year to year across the same geographical locus.
If such events were to continue in the future, the decreasing food security and increasing water scarcity may lead to mass migration, but as international borders ossify, along with the attitudes of and towards those seeking refuge, that may become more and more difficult. Also, as natural resources diminish, their value increases; especially water, with glaciers that feed into water sources melting at alarming rates, and since water usually runs across boundaries with multiple countries able to stake claim, the possibility of all-out war is inevitable.
The Indus River basin is shared by Pakistan, India, China and Afghanistan, but bitter disputes have erupted mainly between Pakistan and India since their independence from the British, whose hastily drawn borders set the stage for a future of such acrimony. Climate change may well be the spark that needs to be added to the tinderbox of disputed borders, differing religio-nationalist ideologies and political instability to push South Asia into nuclear war.
The western end of the Himalayas in northern Pakistan houses some of the largest glaciers in the world that feed into the rivers that flow into the Indus, which has served as the lifeline for the entire region for millennia. Rising temperatures mean glaciers melt at alarming rates, potentially exposing populations downstream. The Attabad lake disaster in 2010 immediately springs to mind. A glacial outflow last year in Shimshal valley caused large-scale damage, flooding villages and crops. Currently, the Shispar glacier in Hunza is on the verge of a glacial outburst. The adjoining population has been advised to evacuate.
In the cities, water tables continue to fall, mainly because of rising demands of a mushrooming population. And the lower below the surface water is to be drawn from, the more toxic it is. In one of the more lurid facets of modern-day capitalism, corporate giants operate with utter impunity and draw water that the locals should have first right on, only to fill it into single-use plastic bottles and sell it to the same people at hefty prices. And because water tables are so low, and the quality so poor, these people are forced to buy it or put their health at stake. Karachi’s water woes are similar and well-documented.
How well equipped is Pakistan in dealing with the threat of climate change? The signs, predictably, are not very encouraging.
Of the Rs7,579 million allocated for various new and ongoing schemes of the Climate Change Division under the PSDP 2019-20, Rs7,500 million is allocated for the Ten Billion Tsunami Programme. That leaves preciously wriggle room for the ministry to take on other emerging challenges due to climate change.
While the billion tree tsunami is an admirable effort, many thousands of hectares have been lost to wildfires throughout this past summer (there may be a more sinister element involved as well). It also goes without saying, however, that planting trees alone will not help save Pakistan from the impending climate disaster. There is a need to understand that battling climate change will require a multi-pronged approach that aims to drastically reduce carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, prevent wastage of rainwater, improve storage capacity, improve public education, maintain biodiversity and ensure preparedness to deal with climate emergencies and disasters.
The National Climate Change Policy 2012 was the first document of its kind in Pakistan, and was launched by the PPP government of the time. It lays out basic priorities and principles in reasonable detail, but to date, no report has been published outlining how far these priorities and goals have been met, if at all. In fact, there have been no updates on the progress of current projects since the PTI-led government has taken charge. It has not been updated to reflect changing priorities and climate trends. The only change, it would seem, has been in personnel.
Some interesting work has been done by the Global Change Impact Studies Centre though including policy papers, research reports and journal articles in local and international publications that include some interesting topics such as the impact of climate change and the vulnerability of Pakistan to it. However, again it is unclear how many of these papers have been adopted as policy or have sparked discussions at policy-making level. The PML-N era minister for Climate Change, Mushahidullah Khan, when pressed by reporters to list his ministry’s accomplishments during his tenure as minister, answered “our job is to make policy, not execute it.” The current minister has also done little to show for all her government’s bluster.
Moreover, there is a link on each website to the PM-(ex) CJ dam fund for the Mohmand and Diamer-Bhasha Dams. The obsession of Pakistan’s decision makers with building more reservoirs on the Indus upstream is unfathomable, despite many experts pointing to the entire project being a potential economic and environmental disaster and its devastating effects on the health of the Indus delta. Such attempts to ‘secure’ the country’s future by well-meaning but misguided messiahs have historically caused more harm than good.
Sadly in Pakistan, vested interests also often take priority over the greater good. While multinational oil refineries must comply with environmental standards abroad, they can run roughshod over them here, where the writ of law is weak (or non-existent) or the interests of those in power mean it is in their advantage to do so. Currently, the oil industry wants to delay the launch of high quality and environmentally friendly Euro-V (that contains 10 ppm of Sulphur) fuel as it is more expensive to import and would require them to upgrade their refining equipment. Pakistan still uses the almost defunct Euro-II (500 ppm of Sulphur) variety of diesel. The lower the sulphur level, the less it contributes to air pollution. To put things into perspective, in the US and Europe, Euro-V diesel has been in use since 2006.
Cars and other motor vehicles plod roads in major cities. Little, if any, attention is paid to efficient public transport to cut emissions. In a strange twist, China has helped install coal fired power plants and promoted them as ‘clean energy’ to help Pakistan combat chronic power shortages, even as China attempts to curb its own coal-fueled power generation.
It was thus ironic to read about Pakistan demanding compensation for its low carbon footprint recently. While the truth is that other countries definitely have a larger footprint than Pakistan, we simply cannot shirk from taking responsibility, nor can we point fingers at our neighbours. Pakistan refuses to open its eyes to the havoc climate change has wreaked over the past decade or so, and even when faced with it, the response has been lethargic, to say the least. Pakistan can do far more than it has done to tackle climate change. We need to realise that climate change will not discriminate between race, religion, or who has the bigger nuclear arsenal. It transcends man-made borders and ideologies. Only then can Pakistan (and the rest of the world, for that matter) rise to the challenge.
A failing economy, accelerating urbanization and rapidly rising population will only serve to exacerbate the food insecurity, water scarcity and mass displacement caused by climate change. Pakistan is going to have to do better to tackle climate change. And creating paper ministries and conducting meaningless photo-ops is not it.
Pakistan’s people are, however, very resilient; over the past seventy two years they have gone through many a test, and have somehow survived. But by 2100, summer temperatures in the subcontinent will be too high for human beings to survive. Pakistan and its people find themselves in the middle of what is their biggest and most defining battle yet: that for the survival of the human race. Only they do not yet know it.