THE region of South Asia is faced with many challenges ranging from security and conflicts to poverty, backwardness and illiteracy. But over the years one major challenge that has emerged more serious and threatening than that of terrorism is the climate change which is affecting both life and livelihood of people in so many different ways.
New research from the World Bank attempting to quantify how climate change will affect South Asia over the coming decades has now warned weather changes risk badly denting the living standards of hundreds of millions in the region. According to the report, more than 800 million of South Asia’s inhabitants live in predicted climate change “hotspots” where living standards will fall significantly without action to limit greenhouse gases. Under the worst case “carbon intensive” scenario, living standards will fall by 6.7 percent for Bangladesh, 2.8 percent for India, 2.9 percent for Pakistan, and 7.0 percent for Sri Lanka, by 2050. In fact last summer’s monsoon hit South Asia particularly hard and left nearly 1,400 people dead and displaced millions of others. In the last sixty years, such weather extremes have become more common in the subcontinent and without urgent action to limit carbon emissions, their impact on communities is likely to gett worse. In addition to these extremes, average weather patterns are also changing with each year turning out to be warmer than the previous year and monsoon rainfall patterns are getting more and more erratic. If we also take a look at Pakistan, both monsoon season and high temperatures have claimed lives and affected livelihood of people in recent years. Then in last couple of years, one has also seen toxic smog affecting Pakistan and India in winter season. Last year one saw the Sri lankan cricket players wearing pollution mask while playing in Delhi. In 2015, the severe heat wave that struck Southern Pakistan had temperatures as high as 49°C and in Karachi alone claimed the life of almost 1,200 people. These were just a few instances of how the South Asian region has become vulnerable to global warming. This situation really warrants a joint action plan on the part of South Asian countries that not only mitigates the impact of climate change but also envisages development of such infrastructure that is climate resilient and builds adaptive capacity of communities. This can only be achieved in an environment free of hostility and addressing the core conflicts and disputes in the region. It is time that the countries in the region reject the course of intransigence, proxy wars, conflicts etc and sit together at the platform of SAARC and work towards building a safe and clean future for the present and upcoming generations. Failure is not an option as any apathy will have disastrous consequences for the population of entire region.
Source: https://pakobserver.net/jointly-tackle-climate-change/
