Unadaptable change

Torrential monsoon rains broke a 44-year-old record in Lahore on Thursday (August 1) as the city received a maximum rainfall of almost 360mm within three hours. To put the unprecedented nature of the rainfall into perspective, Pakistan as a whole typically receives around 255mm of rain each month during the July-August monsoon season. The unusually high rains led to widespread urban flooding and the deaths of at least four people including at least two children. Hospitals were flooded, power was disrupted and entire streets were submerged. Other areas of Punjab have also not been spared, with at least six deaths across various districts in the province due to the heavy rains. The Jhelum river will remain at risk of moderate to high-level flooding until August 4 according to a PDMA spokesperson. Meanwhile, 24 people lost their lives in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as monsoon rains lashed the province from July 29 to August 1 and this is not the first time KP has had to deal with excessive and deadly rainfall this year. This April was the wettest in Pakistan’s history since 1961, leading to at least 143 deaths, many of which took place in KP. Sandwiched in between the ongoing and April rain spells was a brutal heatwave that claimed the lives of hundreds of people in the southern areas of the country including Karachi. The Edhi ambulance service reportedly collected an estimated 568 bodies in Karachi during six days in late June.

Going from unprecedented rain to unprecedented heat and then unprecedented rain again is not normal. But then, exceedingly erratic weather that takes people from one extreme to the other within months will become the norm as climate change continues to accelerate. And, while adaptation and climate resilience have become the new buzzwords, one must ask whether developing countries like Pakistan, the ones most vulnerable to climate change, have the capacity to adapt at the pace that is now being required. Our infrastructure was inadequate for the climate challenges of the previous century and any change simply cannot keep pace with just how rapidly the planet’s climate is being altered. And it is not just developing countries that are in trouble. Even a highly advanced economy like Dubai, which spends untold sums on building and maintaining world-class infrastructure that even the West envies, was crippled by unprecedented heavy rains earlier this year.

Even as the threat of climate change becomes more and more apparent and the promises to combat it get ever taller, the actual track record tells a very different tale. Last year, 2023, was the hottest year on record and it also set a new record for carbon emissions. The International Energy Agency estimates that around 37.4 billion tonnes were pumped into the atmosphere. This is a phenomenon primarily being driven by the rich states and is simply unsustainable. No matter what victories the developing world wins at the COP conferences or how much money it manages to get for adaptation and climate reparations, the fact remains that the pace of change the industrialized nations are imposing on the planet is too fast to cope with. Serious cuts to emissions and our exploitative capitalist relationship with the environment are the only way out of this morass.