NEW YORK: Well-known writer and author Fatima Bhutto has termed the 33 million displaced people in Pakistan as “climate refugees” and made a stirring call to the developed countries for help in dealing with the “horrors” left behind by the deadly flooding across the country.
‘The Global North can help the poor of the Global South by taking responsibility for the losses and damages of extreme weather fueled in part by the burning of fossil fuels,” she said in an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday.
“The impacts of decades of fossil fuel burning are already too severe, and apply too unevenly to the poor, for the Global North to deny culpability,” Ms. Bhutto said in her article, titled: What Is Owed to Pakistan, Now One-Third Underwater.
After giving in detail the extent of damage caused by the raging waters, she wrote, “Climate change is very likely to have played a role in the extremely heavy rains, and it definitely played a role in the glacial melt. So, you can call these people (displayed) climate refugees.
“Remember that phrase. Your country will have them, too,” she added.
Pointing out that the worst hit Sindh suffers in extremis, Ms. Bhutto said that the province does not appear to have any disaster preparedness, or any plans in place to reinforce water infrastructure or the barely functioning sewage system.
“Today’s superflood may well prove to be worse — at one point in Sindh Province, rainfall was 508 percent above average”.
But, she said, the lack of attention on Pakistan is “heartbreaking”, as too few major international cultural figures are speaking up in this moment of crisis.
“It is either a snide form of racism — that terrible things happen to places like Pakistan — or else an utter failure of compassion. But Pakistan has long been a cipher, a warning for the world, just like those old stories.
“And so the wealthy world would do well to pay attention. The horrors that Pakistan is struggling with today could soon come for everyone,” Ms. Bhutto in conclusion.
