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'Calamity is coming' as Pakistan struggles with climate change
KARACHI: The sprawling megacity lies crumbling, desiccated by another deadly heatwave, its millions of inhabitants suffering life-threatening water shortages and unable to buy bread that has become too expensive to eat.
It sounds like the stuff of dystopian fiction but it could be the reality Pakistan is facing.
With melting glaciers and a surging population — Pakistan's climate change time bomb is already ticking.
A general view of Passu glacier is seen in Pakistan's Gojal Valley. — AFP
In a nation facing violence and an unprecedented energy shortage slowing economic growth, the environment is a subject little discussed.
But the warning signs are there ─ including catastrophic floods which displaced millions, and a deadly heatwave this summer in Karachi which killed 1,200 people.
Three of the world's most spectacular mountain ranges intersect in the north of Pakistan: the Himalayas, the Hindu Khush and the Karakoram, forming the largest reservoir of ice outside the poles.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee overlooks the Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
The mountain glaciers feed into the Indus River and its tributaries to irrigate the rest of the country, winding through the breadbasket of central Punjab and stretching south to finally merge with the Arabian Sea near Karachi.
The future of Pakistan, whose population the United Nations predicts will surge past 300 million people by 2050, can be read in part by the melting of glaciers like Passu, at the gateway to China.
From its magnificent rocky slopes, the glacial melt is obvious.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee takes observations at a glacier monitoring station, set at an elevation of 4,500 meters, at the 26km-long Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
"When we would come here 25 years ago, the glacier reached that rock up there," explains Javed Akhtar, indicating an area some 500 metres from the tip of the ice.
Akhtar, his face bronzed by the sun, is a villager who has been employed by a team of glaciologists measuring the impact of climate change.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee takes observations at a glacier monitoring station, set at an elevation of 4,500 meters, at the 26km-long Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
Temperatures in northern Pakistan have increased by 1.9 degrees Celsius in the past century, authorities say, causing "glof" — glacial lake outburst floods, where the dams of such lakes abruptly rupture, sending water cascading down the slopes. Today, thirty glacial lakes are under observation in the north.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such mass loss of water is "projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges".
Pakistani residents board boats used to cross Attabad Lake, which was formed following a landslide in January 2010, in Pakistan's Gojal Valley. — AFP
Most of the country is fed by the lush, fertile plains of one such region: Punjab.
The breadbasket
Despite its growing population, Pakistan remains self-sufficient in agricultural terms, largely thanks to the rich Punjabi soil.
But in recent years the province has seen unprecedented, deadly floods that wipe out millions of acres of prime farmland.
Boats are moored in Attabad Lake, which was formed following a landslide in January 2010, in Pakistan's Gojal Valley. — AFP
The disasters are caused by monsoon rains, but are a bellwether for the havoc that melting glaciers could cause, with any variation in water levels threatening farmers' crops.
"When there is too much water it's not good for rice, and when there is not enough, that's also bad. And it's the same for wheat," says farmer Mohsin Ameen Chattha during a walk through his family land just outside of Lahore.
Surplus monsoon water is mostly stored in the country's two large reservoirs, the Tarbela and the Mangla dams — but, warns Ghulam Rasul, director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the supply would hardly last 30 days. "That is not sufficient," he says.
Throughout the rest of the year, farmers rely on the rivers, primarily the glacier-fed Indus, to irrigate their land. For now, the production of rice and wheat is still rising.
But if the glaciers were to one day disappear, "we would be totally dependent on the monsoon. And already it varies," says Rasul. "All this has an impact on food security" for the country, he added.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee takes observations at a glacier monitoring station, set at an elevation of 4,500 meters, at the 26km-long Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
.....
'Calamity is coming' as Pakistan struggles with climate change
KARACHI: The sprawling megacity lies crumbling, desiccated by another deadly heatwave, its millions of inhabitants suffering life-threatening water shortages and unable to buy bread that has become too expensive to eat.
It sounds like the stuff of dystopian fiction but it could be the reality Pakistan is facing.
With melting glaciers and a surging population — Pakistan's climate change time bomb is already ticking.
A general view of Passu glacier is seen in Pakistan's Gojal Valley. — AFP
In a nation facing violence and an unprecedented energy shortage slowing economic growth, the environment is a subject little discussed.
But the warning signs are there ─ including catastrophic floods which displaced millions, and a deadly heatwave this summer in Karachi which killed 1,200 people.
Three of the world's most spectacular mountain ranges intersect in the north of Pakistan: the Himalayas, the Hindu Khush and the Karakoram, forming the largest reservoir of ice outside the poles.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee overlooks the Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
The mountain glaciers feed into the Indus River and its tributaries to irrigate the rest of the country, winding through the breadbasket of central Punjab and stretching south to finally merge with the Arabian Sea near Karachi.
The future of Pakistan, whose population the United Nations predicts will surge past 300 million people by 2050, can be read in part by the melting of glaciers like Passu, at the gateway to China.
From its magnificent rocky slopes, the glacial melt is obvious.
"When we would come here 25 years ago, the glacier reached that rock up there," explains Javed Akhtar, indicating an area some 500 metres from the tip of the ice.
Akhtar, his face bronzed by the sun, is a villager who has been employed by a team of glaciologists measuring the impact of climate change.
Temperatures in northern Pakistan have increased by 1.9 degrees Celsius in the past century, authorities say, causing "glof" — glacial lake outburst floods, where the dams of such lakes abruptly rupture, sending water cascading down the slopes. Today, thirty glacial lakes are under observation in the north.
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), such mass loss of water is "projected to accelerate throughout the 21st century, reducing water availability, hydropower potential, and changing seasonality of flows in regions supplied by meltwater from major mountain ranges".
Most of the country is fed by the lush, fertile plains of one such region: Punjab.
The breadbasket
Despite its growing population, Pakistan remains self-sufficient in agricultural terms, largely thanks to the rich Punjabi soil.
But in recent years the province has seen unprecedented, deadly floods that wipe out millions of acres of prime farmland.
The disasters are caused by monsoon rains, but are a bellwether for the havoc that melting glaciers could cause, with any variation in water levels threatening farmers' crops.
"When there is too much water it's not good for rice, and when there is not enough, that's also bad. And it's the same for wheat," says farmer Mohsin Ameen Chattha during a walk through his family land just outside of Lahore.
Surplus monsoon water is mostly stored in the country's two large reservoirs, the Tarbela and the Mangla dams — but, warns Ghulam Rasul, director general of the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the supply would hardly last 30 days. "That is not sufficient," he says.
Throughout the rest of the year, farmers rely on the rivers, primarily the glacier-fed Indus, to irrigate their land. For now, the production of rice and wheat is still rising.
But if the glaciers were to one day disappear, "we would be totally dependent on the monsoon. And already it varies," says Rasul. "All this has an impact on food security" for the country, he added.
A Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) employee takes observations at a glacier monitoring station, set at an elevation of 4,500 meters, at the 26km-long Passu glacier in the Gojal Valley. — AFP
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