EDITORIAL: While a positive outcome of the COP27 now in session at Egyptian resort Sharm-el-Shaikh is eagerly awaited one can’t overlook the warning sounded by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) that good times are already over as we have already arrived at the brink of climate catastrophe. In a report issued coincidental to COP27 the WMO says despite so much hue and cry against global warming the past eight years are on track to be the warmest on record, fuelled by ever-rising greenhouse gas concentrations and accumulated heat.
It notes that the global average temperature in 2022 is estimated to be about 1.5 degrees Celsius above the 1850-1999 average; but that is no more the case as the last eight years alone were the warmest on record. The greater the warming, the worst the impacts, says the WMO Secretary General Prof Petteri Taalas, warning that the levels of carbon dioxide clearly suggest that the Paris Agreement benchmark of 1.5C is “barely within reach”. The glaciers are melting and this melting will continue for hundreds of years if not for thousands of years, with major implications for water security – a message that should be heard more clearly in Pakistan as its agricultural economy is largely dependent on slow but uninterrupted supply from the melting of glaciers.
And the sea level rise has doubled in last 30 years. But, according to Prof Taalas, who points out the plight of Pakistan following terrible flooding, “All too often, those least responsible for climate change suffer most”. The record-breaking rains in Pakistan in July and August came hard on the heels of an extreme heatwave in March and April. And this sea warming, according to the WMO report, will continue to warm in future – “a change which is irreversible on centennial to millennial time scales”.
We in Pakistan know firsthand the catastrophic impact of global warming, and we also now know that even if we are least responsible for global warming the international response to our pleadings for help to mitigate the ruinous effects of flooding in Sindh is quite miserly. Our case is not very different from that of the 39 island states whose call to save “our very future” too remains largely unheeded. As is the case now the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres then said that greenhouse emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are “choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk”. He had called for “combined forces” to avert the crisis, a call that remained unheard.
But as we talk about the sufferings of those who are least responsible for global warming, like Pakistan and those 39 island states, those responsible for global warming too should heed to Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman’s warning that “what goes in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan”. Unless checked in time the global warming is going to catch up with those too who are presently nonchalant about this global threat to the very existence of life on planet earth. It must be treated as a common enemy because “once one ecosystem is fast tracked to die, it takes others down as well”.
