Not doing what’s needed
With climate changes taking place in the region extreme weather conditions tend to develop unexpectedly. In April untimely rains followed by floods and landslides took toll of over 60 lives in KP, AJK and Gilgit Baltistan. In early June thunderstorms struck various areas in the country killing at least seven and injuring several. This led the prime minister to order DG Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) to submit an explanation of the “very serious and culpable neglect of duty”.
With the advent of the pre-monsoon rains one expects the government to be prepared to deal with emergencies as there are predictions of 20 per cent higher rainfall than normal during the season. It was disclosed at a meeting on Wednesday presided over by the federal minister for planning and development that all the seven flood warning radars in the country were obsolete. The meeting was also told that the government could not mobilise Rs7 billion to purchase a modernised early warning system for the entire country recommended by the PMD. This reflects badly on the priorities of the government which prefers to spend billions on high visibility projects as they can fetch votes rather than on measures to deal with natural calamities that lead to thousands of casualties every other year besides causing widespread dislocation of population and crop losses.
Pakistan is the eighth country most vulnerable to climate change in the world. There is however little realisation of the enormity of the issue among the PML-N leadership. This explains why the ministry of climate has not been given the importance it deserves. After Mushahidullah’s resignation as minister, the portfolio was handed over to Zahid Hamid. A few months later Zahid Hamid was given the portfolio of law also. There is a need to appoint a full time minister for climate change so that he can focus fully on climate related issues in Pakistan besides overcoming technological gaps and installing effective Early Warning Systems (EWS) to deal with rains and floods.
