Disaster risk management and the turf war

Climate change is real and has been in discussion since its effects started hitting the world. Over the decades, numerous seminars, treaties, conventions and platforms have been formed to bring down greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere to below 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the efforts have largely failed to change the consumption behaviour of the great nations. They, especially the US, had been blatantly walking out of treaties that had the potential to reverse the greenhouse gas cycle. Donald Trump, the former US president, withdrew his country from the Paris Climate Accords. He also pulled the US out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — the Iran nuclear agreement. Similarly, the US has neither signed nor ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

Nuclear weapons and climate change are two intertwined existential threats to the globe. Studies show that nuclear weapons can damage the climate even when not used. “Uranium mining, nuclear waste dumps and testing of the actual bombs contaminate the earth and the climate.”

So when underdeveloped and developing countries blame industrial countries for creating this massive humanitarian crisis, they are not entirely wrong. However, that does not absolve the former of their responsibility to develop regulatory and sustainable infrastructure policies to protect the most vulnerable areas and populous from climatic hazards.

In Pakistan, we did not have spring this year. Instead, it was a straight walk from winter to summer. There were warnings from atmospheric and environmental specialists about torrential rains followed by heavy flooding in urban and rural areas alike during the monsoon season, but the country was going south.

The previous government, led by the PTI, which ended prematurely in April 2022 had a Minister for Climate Change, Zartaj Gul. Did she have any plan to counter this expected calamity? If she had, why wasn’t the present Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, put it into action or maybe kept the momentum running to at least mitigate the slaughtering effects that we have seen in recent flooding in almost one-third of Pakistan? Whatever one remembers is that the previous government had been busy for months to avert the regime change plan of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) — a coalition of opposition parties that had been formed to stop military intervention in politics and to dismantle Imran Khan’s government, which the coalition believed had been put into power by the establishment. In the meantime, though, like ever, the entire PDM coalition fell like ripe fruit in the laps of the establishment and followed the same course that had Nawaz Sharif’s political career washed away in 2017. So, basically, the politicians in opposition, their policymakers, the supporting intellectuals and journalists and the power-that-be were all busy implementing the regime change plan. On the opposite side, the government and its supporters in the policy, journalistic and academic circles were equally busy precluding the regime change plan. Nobody was bothered to foresee the crisis in the folds, which has submerged 21 million acres of crops in water. In other words, 65 per cent of Pakistan’s food basket has been destroyed.

The new government, however, with its wounds fresh from its unceremonious departure from power in 2018, reversed, shelved or ended many policies the PTI government had initiated.

This political conundrum exacerbated the balance of payments crisis, leading to procuring more international debt. It slowed down the pace of reform programmes. The opposition, especially the PML-N, now in the driving seat, has its eyes on the rear mirror — to keep a check on the PTI’s rising popularity. Nobody in the PDM wagon has been looking at the front screen. Resultantly, despite all the good brains, keen eyes and motivation to rebuild Pakistan, the country’s political and economic structure fell like a house of cards.

Expecting institutions and departments to perform in this unjust, financially moth-eaten and morally corrupt political environment can only be wishful thinking. The bureaucracy had almost stopped working during the PTI reign because of the sword of Damocles –NAB – hanging over their head.

In 2007 Pakistan developed a holistic Disaster Risk Management (DRM) framework under which a series of departments were created. As a result, the National Disaster Management Authority and the National Disaster Management Commission were established at the federal level. In provinces and districts, the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities and the District Disaster Management Authorities were formed, respectively. In addition, the Parliament rectified the Climate Change Act in 2017. There is also a Flood Commission. All these regulatory and policy actions were meant to prepare the country to counter natural disasters and mitigate their effects.

It was not to be.

A World Bank report titled ‘Pakistan — the Transformative Path’ says, “These bodies do not agree on which of them are ultimately responsible for understanding disaster risk, which are responsible for integrating DRM into development planning, and which are responsible for leading preparedness and response activities.”

It is not the first merciless flood Pakistan is facing. Flooding in 2010, 2011and 2020 had given us ample opportunity to recognise the direction that climate change had determined for Pakistan. We refused to listen, though, like always. As per ‘Pakistan’s Deadly Floods Come Amid Deluge of Crises’, published by the United States Institute of Peace, the rain poured “780 per cent above average level this year.”

Food insecurity is also expected to rise and make the situation worse. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Committee of the Red Cross have noted that 43 per cent of Pakistan’s population was already food insecure when the flood hit.

Agreed that the world, as noted by United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, is going in the wrong direction. However, our political priorities have a larger share in deluging us. The fight for the turf among the power contenders has blinded them to the needs of the 225 million people who have enabled these egocentric politicians and establishment to have a luxurious lifestyle. It is in their name that they get debts and find sympathies in the international audience; otherwise, Pakistan has lost its grains as a responsible country in the comity of nations.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 15^th, 2022.

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