Pakistan floods demonstrate need for climate change mitigation: UN body

Islamabad [Pakistan], September 8 : The devastating floods in Pakistan, which have claimed over 1,200 lives, have now affected more than 33 million people, causing widespread destruction and damage.
Pakistan is facing one of the worst flooding events in its history, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The government estimates that millions across the country are affected by the rains, floods and impacts such as landslides, destroying infrastructure, homes, agricultural land and livestock.
The human and socio-economic toll is expected to increase as flood levels continue to rise, with immense pressure on the country's dams.
The Pakistan Meteorological Department said that it was the wettest August since records began in 1961. National rainfall was 243 per cent above average. In the province of Balochistan, it was +590 per cent and in Sindh +726 per cent, according to the monthly report.
In a video message, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that "the people of Pakistan face the unrelenting impact of heavy rains and flooding - worst in decades. The scale of needs is rising like flood waters. It requires the world's collective and prioritized attention."
According to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, the rainfall has been extreme in those areas and stations where normal monsoon rainfall is generally very little - including Sindh and Balochistan provinces in southern Pakistan.
The number of rainy days is also much higher than normal at most stations in Sindh and Balochistan as well as in northern regions such as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit-Baltistan provinces.
"The ongoing disaster demonstrates once again the need for climate change mitigation and adaptation. It also highlights the importance of WMO's drive to ensure universal access to early warnings which drive anticipatory action through the UN Alerts for all initiative and its integrated flood management and flash flood guidance tools. Anticipatory action alongside an understanding of forecast uncertainty is proven to be highly effective, providing life-saving benefits to communities around the world," WMO said.
Writing for the Indo-Pacific Centre for Strategic Communications (IPCSC), researcher Grusha Bose said this is truly a wake-up call for all nations to take climate change seriously before it's too late.
"Humans keep burning fossil fuels making the earth's atmosphere hotter and hotter, day by day. Some regions on earth due to their geographical positioning are likely to get hit worse than some other regions cause of rapid climate change," she wrote.
Bose contented that the frequency of these calamities over the course of five years has drastically increased.
"If this continues, there will be no land -- some of the islands are already sinking and some of them would disappear in no time -- as the sea level keeps rising due to global warming," she said.