Climate Change in Pakistan: A Looming Crisis
Impact of Climate Chanage in Pakistan
9/19/20241 min read
Climate Change is going to have the biggest impact on Pakistan’s economy in the future.
The two major challenges that arise from it are:
1) Food Security
2) Water Scarcity
The National Drought Monitoring & Early Warning Centre has issued Flash Drought Advisory in May 2024 and highlighted the significantly higher temperatures during this year.
According to World Bank’s Climate Data Analysis, the rise in Average Surface Air Temperature in the last three decades is associated with steady decline in rainfall. An Alarming trend in this category is the significant rise of number of days where temperature is greater than 35 degree Centigrade as shown below:
Now, let’s see the production of wheat over the last 10 years, it has only increased by 4 Gigatonne whereas our population has increased by 50 Million!
In addition, Pakistan is facing a serious water crisis. According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development, the country is rapidly moving from being classified as water “stressed” to water “scarce”—and with its annual water availability fall below 1,000 cubic metres per person.
It’s high time that our policy makers declare Climate Emergency and allocate majority of funds to solving this grave issue.