Pakistan has been experiencing historic and deadly floods for several months. More than 50 million inhabitants find themselves displaced after these extreme climatic events.
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In the face of historic flooding in Pakistan, “the big question posed by climate change is that of the habitability of the planet“alert this Tuesday on franceinfo François Gemenne, rapporteur of the IPCC, specialist in environmental migrations, professor at Sciences Po and at the University of Liège.
>> What we know about the devastating floods that killed at least 1,136 people in three months
“Where will we be able to live?“, continues François Gemenne, “today, almost all regions of the world are. This will probably not be the case tomorrow, either because the regions will be flooded, or because it will be too hot, or because any form of agriculture will be impossible there.“
The floods in Pakistan have already displaced 50 million, “that’s about a quarter of the population“of the country. An unprecedented situation, insists the IPCC rapporteur, since in 2010, “record year in terms of the number of people displaced by climatic events, we reached 38 million people, for the whole year and all countries combined.” In addition, part of the Pakistani territory is now under water: the equivalent of “half of the territory of metropolitan France“.
More broadly, this episode is “somehow“an indicator of what awaits us in the coming years, points out François Gemenne. “We know that climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of extreme events, drought and floods“, insists the researcher. Today, climate change is one of the main factors of migration and population displacement reminds François Gemenne: “every year, 2 to 3 times more people are displaced by extreme weather events than by violence and conflict.”