Climate Change Debate Rises with Pakistan Floods

By Zofeen Ebrahim

KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 16, 2010 (IPS) - "If this is not God’s wrath, what is?" 40-year-old taxi driver Bakht Zada said of the massive floods in Pakistan that have swept away his life earnings.

Speaking to IPS from Madyan city in Swat district in north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Zada might pin the blame for Pakistan’s worst floods in 80 years on forces beyond humankind, but environment experts are debating whether they are linked to a much more earthly phenomenon – climate change.

Three weeks after unusually heavy rains began to pour on Jul. 12 – some areas received up to 300 millimetres in a 36-hour period – Pakistan’s floods have affected 14 million people and killed 1,600, apart from damaging huge swathes of agricultural land, the mainstay of the economy.

The government, international humanitarian agencies and local charities continue to grapple with the disaster, which first hit the north-western part of this South Asian country and is now affecting the Punjab and Sindh provinces. The United Nations has appealed for 459 million U.S. dollars, of which 175 million dollars has been pledged.

Against this backdrop, experts have been trying to make sense of recent instances of extreme weather phenomena. Apart from the floods here, floods in China killed more than 1,100 people, and drought, a heat wave and wildfires hit Russia, in signs that seem consistent with the warming of the planet due to enormous amounts of heat-trapping greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

"Global warming results in catastrophic weather events. The recent floods are a result of climate change, undoubtedly," insisted Simi Kamal, a geographer and water specialist.

"Above-normal temperatures in the Indian Ocean give rise to increased precipitation. And in the north of Pakistan, when moisture-riddled wind currents collide with the mountains and are pushed up into cooler altitudes, moisture is released in the form of cloud bursts," added Khalid Rashid, a mathematician and physicist who studies changes in global weather patterns. "This is what seems to have happened this year."

Others are cautious about making categorical conclusions about links to climate change, but agree that weather patterns have been changing, becoming more extreme and more unpredictable.

"Climate scientists cannot be certain whether the current floods are an extreme weather event of the current climate pattern or a change in it," said Ayub Qutub, an Islamabad-based specialist on water management.

Even R K Pachauri, chief of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says it would be scientifically incorrect to link any single set of events with human-induced climate change. But he agrees that there is enough evidence to show an increase in the frequency and intensity of floods, droughts and extreme precipitation events worldwide.

In fact, he told IPS: "The floods of the kind that hit Pakistan may become more frequent and more intense in the future in this and other parts of the world."

Danish Mustafa, a Pakistani water specialist who teaches geography at the King’s College in London, acknowledges that "rather unusual" monsoon patterns from the Arabian Sea are becoming more frequent.

Ejaz Ahmad, deputy director of the World Wildlife Fund Pakistan, links weather changes to "change in land use patterns, heavy deforestation in the northern part of Pakistan and the conflicts" rather than to climate change. Still, he agrees that there have been more "weird" weather events of late.

"Pakistan experienced a dry spell last March with hardly any rainfall and wheat production was seriously damaged. Then it rained in areas which do not come under the monsoon range such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Broghil,. Similarly, the frequency of cyclones has also increased," Ahmad explained. "A year ago we received the Yemyin cyclone and then this year we had the Phet cyclone. In the past, we would experience cyclones (only) in decades."

Kamala adds that rising temperatures help hasten the melting of water sources like the Himalayas, north of Pakistan, that are the world’s third largest repository of snow and ice. "Our region (South Asia) is among the climate change hotspots, and floods and droughts had been predicted by international experts," he pointed out.

Originating in the Tibetan plateau, the Himalayas also feeds the Indus River basin after turning south from India. The river, now swollen because of the floods, runs along Pakistan’s entire length before discharging into the Arabian Sea, a journey of some 3,180 kilometres.

"Global warming is going much faster, causing catastrophic weather events," explained Kamal. "I’m not sure if this can be stopped now. I’m not even sure if we can adapt to the change as quickly."

Already, Kamal says, Pakistan’s lack of preparedness has added to the toll of the floods. The Indus basin has always been prone to floods, prompting her to to ask: "Why are we always taken by surprise? Why don’t we build scenarios, and based on them plan ahead for floods?"

But Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Islamabad, says some preparations were put in place by the Pakistani government or "the toll would have been much higher."

Still, there are lessons to be learned. "We need the telemetric system on the Indus rivers to function that also need to be extended to monitor flood waves in real time," suggestsed Mustafa. "The local-level capacity will have to be strengthened to be the first line of defence in providing flood protection and then relief. The distant central government cannot do it." (END)

INDUSFLOOD RELIEF

Himal Southasian fund collection drive in partnership with Standard Chartered Bank Nepal. The floods raging through Pakistan at the moment have affected more people
than the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2006 Asian tsunami, and the 2010 Haiti
earthquake combined.

Himal Southasian and Standard Chartered Bank Nepal have set up a fund in
Kathmandu for people from Southasia and elsewhere seeking to support the
ongoing relief efforts in Pakistan . Please avail this facility to send money
to the victims of flood along the Indus. No administrative charges will be
applied to your support; every paisa will be transferred to trusted
organisations in Pakistan for the benefit of the flood victims.

Please send support to:*
Account title: IndusFlood Relief – Himal Southasian/SCB Nepal
Bank: Standard Chartered Bank Nepal Ltd.
Branches Accepting Deposit: Any Branches of SCB Nepal network
SWIFT CODE: SCBLNPKA

(Credit card payments may be made straight to the accounts below at any of the
branches of Standard Chartered Bank in Nepal .)

Account number for Rupees (from India and Nepal): 01-1859293-02
Account number for USD (from elsewhere): 01-1859293-51

Please refer to the Indus Flood Relief page on www.himalmag.com for details.

Protesting Dalits smear themselves with human excreta

Savanur (Haveri dist), July 20, DHNS

What can be said of a system that forces a community to inflict upon themselves the lowest form of humiliation, just so they are allowed to live in their own homes?

A basic right, taken for granted with no second thoughts for many, is a struggle for the Bhangi community in Savanur. The community members went as far as pouring human excreta over themselves, so that their voices are heard and as a sign of protest against those trying to evict them from their homes.

Reason

For the past 70 years, four families of the Bhangi community, who work as night soil workers, have been living in huts built on land belonging to the Savanur Town Municipal Council (TMC).

At a meeting some time ago, the TMC decided to evict the families and build a commercial complex in its place. Ever since, the TMC has employed various devious ways to force the families out of their homes.

Starting with an oral directive, the TMC has resorted to cutting water connection to the families, dumping waste in front of their homes, barging into their homes, insulting their women and threatening them.

The community members, who are treated as the lowest among the dalits, submitted an appeal to the sub-divisional officer in January against their eviction and have ever since submitted numerous appeals to the government over the past seven months.

Finding no sympathisers in the system for their cause, the community members finally resorted to this extreme form of protest on Tuesday.

The families submitted an appeal to the Assistant Commissioner on Monday demanding
temporary water connection. But they were asked to pay the TMC Rs 2,000 for each connection.

Helpless, the community members took out a mock funeral from their homes in Kamala Bangadi to the TMC on Tuesday. At the TMC, three members of the community poured human excreta over themselves and begged for water to clean themselves.

Officials apathy

As if this was not heart-wrenching enough, none of the officials at the Town Municipal Council came forward to receive their appeal.

A verbal duel ensued between TMC officials and Dalit Sangarsha Samithi activists. TMC Executive Officer H N Bajakkanavar defended the TMC, saying they never tried to evict the Bhangis, but added that TMC would provide houses for them under various housing schemes.

He also said only illegal water connections were cut off. However, the DSS pointed out that several illegal water connections in the town were untouched and only those feeding Bhangis were cut off. “This is harassment against a community that is still treated like untouchables,” they said.

When no official accepted the appeal from the Bhangis, the latter cleaned the toilets in the TMC premises.

They then went to the Revenue Department and submitted their appeal to Tahsildar Prashanth Nalavar.
ends