Pakistan, victim this summer of floods “devastating”launched Friday, September 23 at the UN a desperate appeal to save the planet threatened by the climate change caused by the rich countries and which unfairly strikes this poor nation of South Asia, according to its Prime Minister. “Why are my people paying the price for such global warming” while Pakistan represents 0.8% of global CO2 emissions, wondered the Prime Minister. He got angry with a “Nature (who) unleashed her fury on Pakistan without even looking at our carbon footprint”.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly, Shehbaz Sharif hammered home: “Pakistan has never seen such an absolute and devastating illustration of the impact of global warming”. But the Prime Minister, in a rousing speech, added a grim prediction. He warned the international community that this “calamity” climatic due to rains of “monstrous monsoons” was only a prelude to what awaits the rest of the world: “one thing is very clear: what happened in Pakistan will not remain confined to Pakistan”.
According to the leader “the very definition of national security today has changed and unless world leaders unite and act now on a minimal agenda, there will be no Earth to fight wars on”. “Nature will strike back and for that humanity is no match,” warned the 71-year-old leader, in power in Islamabad since April.
Caused by torrential monsoon rains, with the force increased by global warming according to experts, the floods had covered a third of Pakistan – the area of the United Kingdom – and caused the death of nearly 1,600 people since June, according to the last report. On site in early September, Antonio Guterres had urged the world’s major polluters to “stop this madness” of further investing in fossil fuels. It is indeed the oil, coal and gas used by our societies for travel, housing or food that causes global warming.
Pakistan is not the only country to make such remarks. In an interview with AFP, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, attacked the rich countries: “They talk a lot, they make promises, everything is fine, but we don’t see any action, we don’t see any money.” Faced with growing threats, governments in the South regularly denounce the empty promises of developed countries, in particular the broken commitment to increase their aid to 100 billion dollars a year in 2020 so that the poorest countries can reduce their emissions and prepare for impact.