Authorities in Pakistan were warned of flash floods well before time but the government did not take the threat serious hence colossal devastation across the country.
A seminar on climate change was arranged at Islamabad in April this year. It was chaired by the then Deputy Chairman Planning Commission of Pakistan Ishfaq Ahmed. There was a consensus among the speakers at this seminar that “there is an urgent need to come up with a national plan to avoid dangerous climate change as it will alter the temporal and spatial patterns of precipitation and trigger droughts, mudslides, typhoons, cyclones, and flash floods that will have adverse effects on sectors such as water supply, health, agriculture and livelihood.”
They further stressed: “Freshwater resources are vulnerable and have the potential to be strongly impacted by this climate change, with wide-ranging consequences for human societies and ecosystems. Pakistan has one of the largest integrated irrigation systems in the world. However, owing to its sensitive ecological setting and rapid population & pressures of economic growth and with all its rivers emanating or passing through India, it is faced with complex water resource issues. These issues are exacerbating owing to climate change and need to be addressed in a coherent manner, following an integrated approach.”
Ishfaq Ahmed, currently Advisor to Prime Minister on Strategic and Scientific Programs with the status of Federal Minister, when contacted said that the concerned authorities were informed of the lurking danger of severe climate change but their repeated calls went unheard.
“Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani is the chairman of the Planning Commission and proposals to address climate change were sent to him but no concrete steps were taken in this regard,” he told Viewpoint, adding that their repeated warnings of climate change fell on deaf ears.
The expected climate change over the forthcoming century will lead to an intensification of the global hydrological cycle and have significant impact on regional water resources owing to changes in precipitation, evaporation and temperature.
Poor and vulnerable communities have already started to experience adverse impacts of climate change, which will only increase in future and there is an urgent need to enhance the abilities of vulnerable communities to adapt to the adverse impacts, and prepare accordingly.
The flows in rivers are likely to decrease low flow periods, as a result of increased evaporation, and runoff increase with high rainfall events and waste overflows, both of which will degrade water quality. A warmer climate will also lead to sea-level rise which will have severe impacts on coastal zones, estuaries, river deltas and islands.
Heavily populated low-lying areas, glacial fed river basins and semi-arid regions of the developing world, which are already poor and face major water resource management and food security problems, are likely to be most severely impacted by the on-going climate change.
Water sanitation and hygiene infrastructure may be more at risk because of extreme events. Coping with the effects of extreme climate change, it is the need of hour to strengthen planning and management both macro/national and micro grassroots level strategies need to be formulated and implemented. In that perspective it is necessary to understand the science and politics of climate change, assess vulnerabilities, design and implement measures to adapt to the changing climate and its impacts.
Ghulam Haider