Shifting priorities in dealing with climate change

The latest report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), taking note of major weather-related natural disasters, warns that recent instances of climate change such as wildfires in the US, droughts in Australia and flooding in Pakistan are just the beginning and things are going to get much worse.

Conceding that powerful lobbies are preventing curbing production and consumption behaviour which leads to climate change, the IPCC is trying to go beyond merely focusing on the need to curb harmful emissions. The IPCC has now called for the need to adapt to a warming planet and to minimise the risks and maximise the benefits associated with increasing temperatures.

Some of the issues identified in adopting an “adaptive strategy” to climate change include expanding rainwater harvesting, water storage and conservation techniques. The IPCC has also called for irrigation efficiency, improved land management, including erosion control and soil protection and creation of more marshlands and wetlands to buffer against sea level rise and flooding. The need for better infrastructure planning to cope with warming and drainage has been emphasised. With regard to health-related issues, improved climate-sensitive disease surveillance and control is highlighted.

It is wise for the IPCC to move away from an alarmist position and to pluralise the debate concerning climate change. However, in doing so, the IPCC has shifted the responsibility away from the international community onto the private sector and local governments, to take the lead in adapting to climate change. However, expecting developing countries with their nascent sense of disaster management to be able to address these challenges, be able to go beyond reactive disaster management and to work with local governments and the private sector to adapt effectively to climate change remains a tall order.

The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in Pakistan, for instance, remains very far from achieving such goals. The NDMA was set up with international donor agencies’ support, shortly after the 2005 earthquake. Since the time of its creation, the NDMA is still struggling to adequately cope with landslides, earthquakes, droughts, cyclones and monsoon flooding that has since hit different parts of the country.

The NDMA is primarily focused on giving relief to victims of disaster and to achieve their rehabilitation. Its ability to help put in place adaptive strategies remains a distant goal given that it still has a hard time coordinating with lower levels within its own organisation, such as the provincial and district level disaster management authorities, as well as other relevant agencies.

The NDMA is supposed to work closely with the Pakistan Meteorological Office, yet it was not able to assess the recent drought which has recently affected Tharparkar. The authority has also been criticised for excluding or delaying international disaster support due to its false sense of organisational capability in handling disasters such as those which affected our coastal areas after Cyclone Yemyin in 2007.

Given such limited ability, entities like the NDMA can hardly be expected to coordinate with an increased number of local government and private sector entities to help adapt effectively to climate change.

The IPCC, thus, cannot just absolve itself, or the international community, by expecting ill-equipped developing countries to contend with the multiple challenges of adapting to climate changes. After all, developed nations are not only better equipped to help bear the costs of adaptation around the world, but are largely responsible for having caused the climate change, which has compelled the need for such adaption.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 11^th, 2014.

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