"Leaders of the world, I pretend for a living. But you do not." – Leonardo Dicaprio at the U.N Climate Summit
The climate crisis is one of the greatest challenges we have ever faced. Its consequences are already visible all around the world. We now face stronger storms, bigger floods and droughts, the temperatures is worsening with hotter summers and colder winters, the spreading of tropical diseases, melting of ice and the rising seas. And this is not where it stops; these events are all projected to get worse in coming years unless we stop using the atmosphere as an open sewer for the 98 million tons of global-warming pollution that we pour into it every single day.
Pakistan is no stranger to the consequences of Climate Change. In the past few decades, Pakistan has been severely affected by Climate Change and the impacts on human lives have become more significant since the 1990’s. Floods are the new normal in Pakistan, occurring every year with no action from the government. Several hundred people have died in floods every year.
The flash floods of September 2014 has killed nearly 280 people and injured more than 500 in Pakistan affecting more than 2 million people. The flood surge was so big that authorities had to blow up dikes to divert swollen rivers and save cities from raging. But this thereby flooded nearby farming areas, displacing tens of thousands of people. With all the loss and destruction by climate change, still no action is being taken by the government of Pakistan.
But there is still a glimmer of hope. All over the world people are mobilizing to put a stop to climate change, The People’s Climate March is one example. As the world leaders gathered in New York for the climate summit at the United Nations, people around the world took part in the Climate March to put more focus on this critical topic. The People’s Climate March was one of the largest climate mobilizations in history. More than 400,000 people showed up in the streets of New York on September 21st to voice the loudest, strongest, clearest call for action on climate change the world has ever seen. There were more than 2646 solidarity events in 162 countries.
The United Nations Climate Summit was a gathering of 120 world leaders, the first such meeting on climate change in five years. It resulted in a day of impassioned speeches, including a powerful speech from the famous actor and UN Ambassador of Peace Leonardo DiCaprio, who said, “Climate change is not hysteria, it’s a fact”, and “This is not a partisan debate, it is a human one. Clean air and water are human rights”. Several of the speeches, including that of President Barack Obama, mentioned the 400,000 people who turned out for the climate march in New York.
Pakistan’s chief delegate; the Adviser on National Security and Foreign Affairs, Sartaj Aziz also made a reference to the march, saying, “World citizens legitimately expect this summit committing to build multilateral and multi-stakeholder coalitions; to provide a clear signal for a global agreement in 2015 and scaling up public and private funding for climate change.” Aziz said Pakistan is also evolving a broad climate change policy, which will mainly focused on mitigation and adaptation measures and how to deal with this threat. “Our mitigation measures cover energy, transport, town planning and agriculture,” he told the conference. “In the past 40 years, 9 out of the 10 top natural disasters in Pakistan have been triggered largely by climate change”. “Our discussions today indicate that we have a common perception of the climatic threat and a common purpose to overcome it,” Aziz said. “We have to undertake this journey together. Our destination is the same. Unity of purpose should be our lodestar.” Pakistan, he said, would assist the international community to reach the agreement on climate change by 2015.
With all the great promises and speeches made at the United Nations Climate Summit, all we can do is hope for a positive outcome. Bill McKibben, environmentalist and founder of 350.org sat on a panel with Kumi Naidoo, executive director of Greenpeace International on Monday 22nd September at the 2014 Social Good Summit. They both shared the same sentiments in terms of expectations from the Climate Summit, saying we'll see a "massive dose of verbal diarrhea" over the next few days. Naidoo also said to the leaders gathering at the Climate Summit "The time for words is over,” Despite the cynicism, both are still hopeful in the power of people because of the sheer number of people who showed up to The People’s Climate