United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, currently visiting Pakistan, has made another appeal to the international community to help the country recover from the catastrophic floods, noting that the country requires “massive” financial support if it is to recover from the disaster that has killed more than 1,300 people, displaced around 33 million and caused a $30 billion worth of damages. And these figures are just initial estimates. The figures on the destruction will continue to rise as records are updated for agriculture losses and damage to property and infrastructure, while casualty and affectee counts are also anticipated to rise.
The disaster is indeed unprecedented, as Secretary General Guterres also noted that he has “no memory of anything similar to what has happened with the impact of climate change in Pakistan.” Addressing a joint presser alongside Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif on Friday, Guterres lamented how the country, despite being a minor polluter, is suffering the worst effects of climate change. “Humanity has declared war on nature and nature is tracking back. But nature is blind. It is not striking back on those who have contributed more to the war on nature,” he said. “It is like nature has attacked the wrong targets. It should be those that are more responsible for climate change that should have to face these kinds of challenges.”
Not just the UN chief, more and more people around the word are now realising that Pakistan is among the wrong targets of the nature and deserves to be financially compensated for its sufferings for which the developing countries are mainly responsible. Guterres, on his part, underscored that the international community, and especially the major polluters of the past and present, have a duty to drastically reduce their own emissions and support countries that cannot afford to invest in climate change adaptation. He also noted that, relative to the scale of the disaster and Pakistan’s limited resources, the flood response has been about as good as it could be.
Guterres, who announced his trip to the calamity-hit Pakistan soon after launching a $160 million UN Flash Appeal for flood relief, will be back in New York next week for the UN General Assembly session, where he is again expected to appeal to member countries to help Pakistan recover from what he has described as a “monsoon on steroids”. Beyond disaster aid for Pakistan, the UN chief is also expected to make fresh appeals for debt relief for developing countries, which has been one of his main goals since taking over as secretary general of the world body.
Guterres has described debt relief as “justice”, partly because the pillaging of the global south is what let most rich countries gain their wealth while stripping the rest of the world bare. The impact of that pillaging has been increased by the impact of climate change, which Pakistan and other susceptible countries can ill afford to address on their own.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2022.
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