33 million people

Sep 25th, 2022 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

This is the warning.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has warned that climate change will not spare other countries the sort of disaster that left up to one third of his country underwater and millions of its children at risk of water-borne diseases.

…

“In this ground zero of climate change, 33 million people, including women and children, are now at high risk from health hazards,” he said.

It’s not going to be just pockets here and there, that the rest of us can ignore. It’s going to be millions – and in fact it already is.

Authorities have warned it could take up to six months for the flood waters to recede in the country’s hardest-hit areas, as fears rise over the threat posed by waterborne diseases including cholera and dengue.

The deluge has left 3.4 million children in need of “immediate, lifesaving support,” according to UNICEF, leaving them vulnerable to contracting water-borne diseases, including dengue fever and malaria.

“The undeniable and inconvenient truth is that this calamity has not been triggered by anything we have done,” he said.

Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of the world’s planet-warming gases, European Union data shows, yet it is the eighth most vulnerable nation to the climate crisis, according to the Global Climate Risk Index.

Hardly fair, is it.

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