It is climate change stupid
Climate change is a real threat
Pakistanis
are experiencing an unusual winter this season. First they faced extreme cold
weather in the plains. The temperatures dropped to near 0 centigrade in plains
of Punjab and KPK.
The
government announced to extend the winter school holidays for a week. Now the
mountain regions of the country are bracing heavy snow for last three days. The
heavy snow has disrupted the daily life in many parts of the country. The roads
have been blocked. People are stranded in the vehicles due to heavy snow fall.
According to
the Dr Khalid Malik National Weather Forecasting Centre Director and
Spokesperson of Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)- this extreme weather
and spell of extreme cold in different
parts of the country this year as compared to previous years due to climate
change. The people are facing harsh weather as the impact of climate change.
Pakistan,
which has been listed as the 7th most vulnerable country affected by climate
change, needs to seriously tackle the vagaries of weather, both at the official
as well as non-official level.
Climate
change can generally be defined as a change in global or regional climate
patterns. In particular, it is the change apparent from the mid-to-late 20th
century onward, and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric
carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels.
The Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: “A change
of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that
alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to
natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods."
Pakistan has
also suffered economically due to climate change. According to experts,
Pakistan has faced around 150 freak weather incidents as a result of climate
change in the past 20 years: flash floods, smog in winter, forest fires in
summer, melting glaciers, freaky heatwaves, landslides, displaced population.
During the floods in 2010-11, almost 10 percent of Pakistan’s population was
displaced in two provinces, one in the north and another in the south. Last
year, the cost of extreme weather as a consequence of climate change was listed
at $384 million; in the past 20 years, there has been a cost of almost two
billion dollars to the national economy because of the ravages of climate
change.
He further
said that the winter season, which started in December was more intense than
previous years and last month of 2019 was the coldest month of the year. He
predicted that the temperature could drop further in coming weeks with change
in the weather systems and temperature would reduce up to one or two degree
Celsius in the country.
“Pakistan
continues to bear the brunt of climate change due to which the winter season is
now shrinking more and the summer season is prolonging,” said Dr Khalid.
Dr Khalid
said due to this increasing snowfall in hilly areas, more water is expected in
the rivers. Despite the onset of rains and snowfall this winter, rainfall and
snowfall have been higher than usual. Snowfall over the mountains this winter
would break the records for the past years, he added.
Climate
change is bringing extreme weather pattern. The temperatures are rising in
summer and dropping to lowest levels in winter. In last few days-the temperatures
dropped to below -14 in parts of Baluchistan which never experienced such
extreme winter.
Our
government needs to take the impacts of climate change and global warming
seriously to address them. The change in weather patterns and systems is
affecting the crops and agriculture products. The unusual rains also damage the
crops.
The Global
Change Impact Studies Centre of Pakistan shows that the mean annual temperature
has increased in the recent past with greater increase in Sindh and Baluchistan.
During the last century, the average temperature over Pakistan has increased by
0.6°C, which is in conformity with the increase of the average global
temperature.
Future climate change projections, based on
all four IPCC-AR5 RCPs scenarios, show that the average rise in temperature
over Pakistan, by the end of the century, will be about 1°C higher compared to
the global average.
This increase, particularly in temperature, is
associated with a number of adverse impacts, including the increasing frequency
of extreme events (floods, droughts, heat waves, and cyclonic activity), steady
regression of most glaciers (except a small minority in the Karakorum Range)
that supply the bulk of the country’s water supply and changes in the rainfall
patterns.
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