The temperatures will rise. There will be floods. There will be droughts. Rain patterns will change. Sea levels will rise. Cities will sink. Glaciers will melt. People will migrate.
We all have read this in articles or heard someone somewhere say it. But the fact is that all of this is inaccurate. It is simply not true. It will not happen in the future because it is happening now.
The recent flooding in Karachi was not only caused due to the ineptitude of the Karachi city government. How much could a government have done with five months of rainfall pouring down in just 36 hours? Just a few weeks ago, the Indonesian government announced to change its capital city because Jakarta is sinking. The people of inner Sindh in Thatta and Badin have been forced to migrate because of lack of access to water brought on by drought resulting from infrequent rainfall. In the first week of August this year, Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of its ice in one day alone. To put this number into context, it is enough water to fill whole of Germany. This year’s June and July were the warmest recorded months in the planet’s history. And yet we have not imposed a global climate emergency to protect the planet. To add insult to injury, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, the United States of America, pulled out of the Paris Agreement that plans to solve problems such as these that are caused by Climate Change.
The indifference to the crisis is appalling given that the UN IPCC report conservatively predicts that at the current trajectory we will witness a three to give degree Celsius rise in temperatures by century end. This rise would mean that approximately 60 percent of Pakistan’s glaciers, the largest body of water in the world, would be gone. Agriculture due to heat would be minimal, farmers shall lose livelihoods and large groups of people would be forced to migrate.
Yet, with all the science that warns us, the available technology that could save us, the political will required to move away from fossil fuel-driven development that breeds climate change is nowhere to be found. Provoked by this indifference and inaction, citizens under the leadership of young students like Greta Thunberg are coming out on the streets seeking action against climate change.
Between September 20 and 27, in the run up to the UN Climate Action Summit, people young and old, from all walks of life, shall come together to wake their snoozing governments up from the illusion that we have all the time in the world to deal with this crisis.
Pakistan, alongside the rest of the world, shall be marching in more than 20 cities on Friday, September 20. Students, farmers, labourers, lawyers, doctors, writers, teachers, artists are all coming together to march with a set of demands collectively drafted as a manifesto that calls on the government to take a number of steps.
These measures call, first and foremost, for the government to declare a constitutional climate emergency in Pakistan. Second, we ask for the National Climate Change Council to be convened and for the defunct Climate Change Authority to be staffed and put into work.
Thousands in central Punjab and Karachi have suffered due to deteriorating air quality and smog here has become a fifth season. Lahore regularly breathes the worst air in the world according to Air Visual’s rankings. It is mainly caused by low grade fuel in transport, coal powered plants, cement factories and brick kilns. However, action is only taken against the latter. Thus we are also calling on the government to immediately declare air quality as a public health issue and institute remedial measures.
Pakistan’s energy mix mainly depends on furnace oil power generation, gas and coal. We are demanding a shift to renewable resources of generating power, as it also comes at a lower cost than conventional fuel sources; and the decommissioning of coal power plants operating in Pakistan.
One of the seminal demands is for marginalised communities and women to be put at the centre of climate policy making since they are likely to be the most affected by it.
The demands also seek government action on all three tiers, namely, federal, provincial and local.
The magnitude of the crisis is colossal. Our success in combating this crisis however doesn’t depend on the severity of the crisis but on our resolve to overcome it. Collective action, and collective action alone can give us a fighting chance to deal with this challenge. This is not the time to be demoralised or lose hope but to act because right now we have that window of opportunity, albeit a small one.
And it is for this reason that you must join marchers in 20 different cities in Pakistan from Ghotki to Gilgit and Karachi to Peshawar. Marches will be held at press clubs, main roads and universities all over the country.
Come together; raise your voices. Let us change tomorrow. Let us begin today!
We all have read this in articles or heard someone somewhere say it. But the fact is that all of this is inaccurate. It is simply not true. It will not happen in the future because it is happening now.
The recent flooding in Karachi was not only caused due to the ineptitude of the Karachi city government. How much could a government have done with five months of rainfall pouring down in just 36 hours? Just a few weeks ago, the Indonesian government announced to change its capital city because Jakarta is sinking. The people of inner Sindh in Thatta and Badin have been forced to migrate because of lack of access to water brought on by drought resulting from infrequent rainfall. In the first week of August this year, Greenland lost 12.5 billion tons of its ice in one day alone. To put this number into context, it is enough water to fill whole of Germany. This year’s June and July were the warmest recorded months in the planet’s history. And yet we have not imposed a global climate emergency to protect the planet. To add insult to injury, the world’s largest greenhouse gas emitter, the United States of America, pulled out of the Paris Agreement that plans to solve problems such as these that are caused by Climate Change.
Thousands in central Punjab and Karachi have suffered due to deteriorating air quality and smog here has become a fifth season
The indifference to the crisis is appalling given that the UN IPCC report conservatively predicts that at the current trajectory we will witness a three to give degree Celsius rise in temperatures by century end. This rise would mean that approximately 60 percent of Pakistan’s glaciers, the largest body of water in the world, would be gone. Agriculture due to heat would be minimal, farmers shall lose livelihoods and large groups of people would be forced to migrate.
Yet, with all the science that warns us, the available technology that could save us, the political will required to move away from fossil fuel-driven development that breeds climate change is nowhere to be found. Provoked by this indifference and inaction, citizens under the leadership of young students like Greta Thunberg are coming out on the streets seeking action against climate change.
Between September 20 and 27, in the run up to the UN Climate Action Summit, people young and old, from all walks of life, shall come together to wake their snoozing governments up from the illusion that we have all the time in the world to deal with this crisis.
Pakistan, alongside the rest of the world, shall be marching in more than 20 cities on Friday, September 20. Students, farmers, labourers, lawyers, doctors, writers, teachers, artists are all coming together to march with a set of demands collectively drafted as a manifesto that calls on the government to take a number of steps.
These measures call, first and foremost, for the government to declare a constitutional climate emergency in Pakistan. Second, we ask for the National Climate Change Council to be convened and for the defunct Climate Change Authority to be staffed and put into work.
Thousands in central Punjab and Karachi have suffered due to deteriorating air quality and smog here has become a fifth season. Lahore regularly breathes the worst air in the world according to Air Visual’s rankings. It is mainly caused by low grade fuel in transport, coal powered plants, cement factories and brick kilns. However, action is only taken against the latter. Thus we are also calling on the government to immediately declare air quality as a public health issue and institute remedial measures.
Pakistan’s energy mix mainly depends on furnace oil power generation, gas and coal. We are demanding a shift to renewable resources of generating power, as it also comes at a lower cost than conventional fuel sources; and the decommissioning of coal power plants operating in Pakistan.
One of the seminal demands is for marginalised communities and women to be put at the centre of climate policy making since they are likely to be the most affected by it.
The demands also seek government action on all three tiers, namely, federal, provincial and local.
The magnitude of the crisis is colossal. Our success in combating this crisis however doesn’t depend on the severity of the crisis but on our resolve to overcome it. Collective action, and collective action alone can give us a fighting chance to deal with this challenge. This is not the time to be demoralised or lose hope but to act because right now we have that window of opportunity, albeit a small one.
And it is for this reason that you must join marchers in 20 different cities in Pakistan from Ghotki to Gilgit and Karachi to Peshawar. Marches will be held at press clubs, main roads and universities all over the country.
Come together; raise your voices. Let us change tomorrow. Let us begin today!