Pakistan floods highlight need for climate loss and damage help

Dennis TSeptember 1, 2022

13 2 minutes read

Rich carbon polluters should feel “moral pressure” to help fund climate-vulnerable nations wracked by weather extremes such as Pakistan, where monstrous flooding has caused devastation, diplomats and observers told AFP.

Torrential monsoon rains have killed more than a thousand, left a third of Pakistan under water and displaced hundreds of thousands, months after the country was scorched by record-shattering heat, intensified by climate change.

While it is too early to quantify the contribution of warming, scientists say the rains are broadly consistent with expectations that climate change will make the Indian monsoon wetter.

The United Nations chief has called them a “climate catastrophe”. This is not a freak accident,” said Nabeel Munir, Pakistan’s ambassador to Seoul and chair of the largest negotiating bloc of developing nations at UN climate negotiations. The science proves the frequency and the impact of these disasters is only going to increase and we have to be prepared for that.”

The human and economic impact is already staggering and “this is an ongoing disaster; the rains are still going on”, he told AFP.

“Understanding the forces behind disasters like Pakistan’s current floods is an important step toward holding developed nations accountable for the changes they have wrought,” she told AFP. In March a blistering hot spell began to develop across parts of South Asia, with Pakistan registering record temperatures.

Scientists from the World Weather Attribution climate group estimated that climate change had made the heatwave 30 times more likely.

The region’s “breadbasket” in northwestern India and south Pakistan was particularly affected. Crops wilted, while sheep collapsed and died of heatstroke. We had temperatures in the cities touching 50 degrees (Celsius, 122 degrees Fahrenheit), can you even imagine?” said Munir.

“There are cities which might become unliveable because of the temperatures they will regularly have.
That can lead to a “compound effect where we’ve got higher than average river levels, on top of higher than average rainfall”, said Helen Griffith, a researcher of hydrology and environmental science at the University of Reading.

While Pakistan suffered severe flooding in the heavy monsoon of 2010, she said rainfall this year was “unprecedented” and deluging areas where people would never have experienced rains on this scale.

In Balochistan province rainfall was 466 percent higher than normal, Munir said, while the country itself has had three times the national average.

So far the floods have affected around 33 million people, destroyed nearly a million homes and wiped out almost 200 bridges and 3,500 kilometres (2,200 miles) of roads, hampering efforts to reach those in need

Source: eNCA