Acknowledging whether climate change is real doesn’t stop the climate to change, and it’s already hot as Hades out there. At least Pakistan claims to be a topper in any list of global indexes, as it is included in top ten climate vulnerable countries on the Earth. Global warming is one of the pressing predicaments within global shared problems given its impacts haunting all aspects of life in all areas of the world.
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirms Asia as “most disaster-prone region” with lasting impacts on socio economic affairs and quotidian activities. Every climate inaction is leading to the tipping point where climate change would be irreversible. From mental health to developmental affairs, climate change has been haunting all and sundry. Island countries, South Asian nations and some other regions have especially been under climate change impact with no justice, reparations or loss and damage funds (LDF) in sight owing to either global hypocrisy or implementation apathy.
Though it has almost been two years since United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres said “we are on a highway to hell, our foot still on the accelerator” on the land of Sharm-El-Sheikh, the situation still seems unchanged. Floods, droughts, cyclones, and swift weather changes made countries across the globe issue red alert warnings, leaving individual, collective and communal life at stale.
Pennsylvanian oil discovery triggered the previously halted climate change, imperialism fuelled it for further exacerbation and peak industrialization hammered the last nail on the coffin. Now, climate change makes societies dance to its tune. Extreme heat waves, quicker evaporation, unseasoned monsoon rainfalls, and unwanted droughts are sneaking into the lives of ordinary people. Climate induced anxiety, unknown fear and the absence of meliorism has already been entered into the cognitive realm. For a radical nihilist, life, world and even the universe are of no meaning though, existentialism is yet to cover the scepticism and change the status from inaction to action.
Rotating the continents for conferences — Conference of Parties (COP) recent summits took place in Glasgow, Sharm El-Sheikh, Dubai, while Baku and Belém are the next destinations — may seem an appropriate tactic to spread climate awareness, concrete actions are what need of the hour. “We’re nowhere yet where we need to be,” said Barack Obama on the stage of the COP26 summit, Glasgow, adding “the images of dystopia start creeping into my dreams”. Climate change and climate inaction are yet to be fully painted in the population brain for the completion of individual level implementation.
Though the world already seems like a near counterpart of dystopia, the changes in climate has been trying hard to negate the nearness and catalyse it into a simile, and, the way things are going, this will turn into reality anytime soon. The negligence in climate action results in climate inaction halting climate justice, “ActNow” initiatives, and that, in effect, gives birth to more climate induced calamities. In the chaos of quotidian activities, the heat is commonly felt to all societies across the globe, even the near polar region residents confirm the heat given the unabated melting of glaciers.
Hark back, changing continents for conferences may provide a roadmap to travel on, though, the national level, long-lasting and effective policies are what considered the apparatus behind chasing the solution. Needless to say, how Pakistan’s policymakers are notoriously famous for creating self-centred policies solely profitable for that tier. Though through COPs, Rio Declaration and Kyoto Protocol, the global community has long been preoccupied with resolving, or at least, mitigating climate induced calamities, fears and anxieties, our part of people, of course, the elite tier, neglects or even negates the procedure that may spray a sigh of solace.
In the absence of heat solace, moderate temperature and suitable environment, policymakers, not populations, are to blame. The implementory forces equally share the blame with the top executive tier being the real culprit. Pakistan’s political unwillingness and population’s climate unawareness are two major setbacks to climate action. Morally corrupt and intellectually bankrupt political bodies and other aligned elements have been the centrifugal forces to diminish the gravity of the mayhem.
The world in general, and Pakistan in particular has been facing the music of sin they never committed. It is one of the lasting legacies of imperialism, and industrialization that primarily exacerbated it into worse.
Considering climate justice a primary purpose, a prioritised task in the policies and submissive political willingness to adapt the global community instructions will surely land the world into the intended place. Climate injustice, and inaction have surely been the bulwarks eclipsing the salubrious environment ahead. Given the policies’ unadaptation, climate change denial and an incessant reluctance to fluctuate from harmful actions to environmental friendly commitments have been the primary impediments in this part of the world. That, in effect, higher this country’s rank in the list of most vulnerable countries.
Accepting the irreversible irresponsibilities committed by the bygone and existing powerful nations will emerge as the sole way forward as denial to reality results in utter misery.
