By Sardar Khan Niazi
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has urged the world to amplify its assistance to Pakistan in the wake of the natural disaster along with substantial debt support for the South Asian nation to help the country overcome numerous challenges including economic stability.
He noted that Pakistan, despite its little contribution to climate change is bearing the negative effects of the phenomenon of natural disasters. Therefore, it is essential for other countries, particularly those contributing to carbon emissions, to mobilize resources for Pakistan following the devastating monsoon.
Reiterating the UN’s commitment, strong support, and solidarity with the flood-affected populace of Pakistan, he said, “It is not a matter of generosity, but a matter of justice.”
Undeniably, the developed countries have been affecting the global environment, and due to the pollution, they have been making the climate warmer and warmer, which resulted in more floods and glacial melting and giving rise to catastrophic situations as in Pakistan.
Pakistan is not responsible for this environmental pollution, but it is still suffering due to the pollution of others. The UN secretary general stressed upon the developed countries to massively support Pakistan due to the pollution they have released affecting the global environment.
Pakistan has no resources to compensate for the loss of lives, crops, and livestock. The volume of devastation is so enormous that it is not possible for the government to tackle the situation through local resources. Those who have created such a situation must massively support Pakistan, as it cannot do it alone.
Pakistan is passing through an arduous movement in its history as the hill torrents have submerged a third of its landmass and floods have severely affected one in every seven Pakistani.
The monsoon rains have caused heavy losses in hilly areas, planes, and urban centers destroying business markets, and food grain stores, and killing hundreds of thousands of livestock.
They badly damaged road infrastructure, restricted movement and transportation of relief goods to flood-hit areas, and ruined standing crops over millions of square kilometers in Southern Punjab and Sindh, which has prompted fear of malnutrition and famine in the country.
Increasing prices of agricultural produce show that unless the situation comes to normal in the rural belt, the kitchen basket effect on inflation will not decrease; as a result, all the IMF plans for economic recovery may go down the drain.
With the intense impact of global warming and the greenhouse effect, which caused a global heat wave of huge proportions; it was all natural that Pakistan would be part of the devastation. However, the Pakistan government must take into account the human mismanagement factor in this disaster.
With the development of the cities as urban centers, which attract a major chunk of economic activity and migration within, the eco-balance has given way to haphazard development. The result of that state of affairs has been the chaos, which we all are witnessing as urban flooding.
The reason for that state of affairs lay in the utter disregard for the environmental safeguards, that the various tiers of government; federal, provincial, and municipal were supposed to observe. The main offender has been the free rein given to the builders to build as much as they can; wipe out trees and green areas, as they will.
The absence of greenery deprived the falling water of the opportunity to be absorbed into the land and of minimizing the prospects of stagnating water on the roads, open spaces, or in the residential areas or markets.
These days, flood is not the swelling of the rivers; it is now the failure or breakdown of the urban drainage system. That is why the major cities remain submerged in water.
