Flooding in Pakistan

During the month of August, Pakistan has had the effects of climate change devastating the nation. Heat typical of a La Nina weather with extreme heat conditions as early as May. The city of Nawabshah in Pakistan hit 49.5 degrees celsius or 120 degrees fahrenheit on May 1st (Nasa). As late July came around, monsoonal rains hit Pakistan and have been causing devastating flooding. According to the Nasa Earth Observatory they have received five to six times their average rainfall over the last thirty years. Along with the monsoonal rains the increasingly hot summer temperatures have caused glacial ice melting. Pakistan has the most glacial ice of any nation outside of the polar regions (Nasa). The melting of these glaciers not only adds to the flooding but is a clear indicator of climate change.
“Devastating Floods in Pakistan.” NASA, NASA, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150279/devastating-floods-in-pakistan.

The floods have affected approximately thirty three thousand people and destroyed or damaged over one million houses. This devastating event is nothing new to Pakistan as in 2010 the nation suffered from flooding almost identical to the flooding of this August. Extreme weather events such as these floods in Pakistan will only continue to affect people all over the world. When people start becoming displaced from their home and not having access to basic resources then The issue becomes bigger than climate change but also becomes an issue of human rights.


The connection between climate change and human rights is something that is easy to overlook but shouldn’t be. The consequences of climate change have been proven to disproportionately affect low income people and minority communities. Furthermore these consequences threaten human rights as established in documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The flooding in Pakistan is a prime example of how violations of human rights can stem from environmental impacts. A Study conducted by Germanwatch to determine the Global Climate Risk Index of 2021 found Pakistan to have the eighth highest risk. Not only do developing nations such as Pakistan have a higher risk, but they also contribute to climate change much less than developed nations such as the United States. Human rights in Pakistan are much more complex than what is just being caused by the flooding, but extreme weather events only make any existing problems worse. (Barry et. al.) This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the complexity of human rights issues caused by climate change but the Flooding in Pakistan is a good starting place in creating awareness.


Citations: 

Barry S. Levy, Jonathan A. Patz, “Climate Change, Human Rights, and Social Justice”Annals of Global Health, Volume 81, Issue 3, 2015, Pages 310-322, ISSN 2214-9996, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aogh.2015.08.008.

“Devastating Floods in Pakistan.” NASA, NASA, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/150279/devastating-floods-in-pakistan.

“Global Climate Risk Index 2021 .” ReliefWeb, 25 Jan. 2021, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global climate-risk-index-2021.

Henson, Bob. “Cruel Echoes of a 2010 Disaster in Pakistan's Catastrophic 2022 Floods” Yale Climate Connections.” Yale Climate Connections, 31 Aug. 2022, https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2022/08/cruel-echoes-of-a-2010-disaster-in-pakistans-catastrophic-2022-floods/.

“Pakistan 2022 Floods Response Plan: 01 Sep 2022 - 28 Feb 2023 (Issued 30 Aug 2022) - Pakistan.” ReliefWeb, 30 Aug. 2022, https://reliefweb.int/report/pakistan/pakistan-2022-floods-response-plan-01-sep-2022-28-feb-2023-issued-30-aug-2022.


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