THE list of challenges facing Pakistan that require a strong, centrally organised response is growing with alarming speed. This week has seen the World Health Organisation (WHO) add Pakistan to a brief list of other countries exporting the polio virus. It recommends that Pakistani nationals and others who have spent any time in the country be required to present proof of polio vaccination before being allowed to travel.

But that’s not all. Only last year, John Steinbruner, professor of public policy at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and director of the Centre for International and Security Studies at Maryland, had given the keynote address before the World Affairs Council on climate change and its challenges.

Much of his focus was on the global consequences of climate change, which he made very clear that the latest science tells us are going to be much larger than we can probably foresee. But the “character, timing, magnitude and location of those consequences cannot be predicted” with any meaningful confidence. So to make the consequences more concrete, he dwelt on the case of Pakistan.

This is what he says in that lecture which is posted online for all to see: “[T]here’s good reason to believe that Pakistan is the place on earth that is most likely, or is encountering if you will, the most significant climate impulse at the moment.”

To highlight Pakistan’s vulnerability, he starts by giving an idea of the important role that agriculture plays in our economy, in terms of its share in GDP, employment of the labour force as well as foreign exchange earnings.

It’s worth emphasising that these numbers actually understate the scale of vulnerability. Much of our industry that is traditionally not classified as agrarian in nature is nevertheless linked to agriculture in crucial ways.

Think of fertiliser and textiles for example, or sugar and flour milling, each with significant weight in the overall composition of GDP. Each industry shares the fortunes of the agrarian economy. Then there’s the services sector: transport and financial services (after budgetary support, commo­dity operations are amongst the largest lending activities of the banks, next to energy).

Given the importance of agriculture in our economy, the next step is to understand the importance of water. Pakistan is an arid country, and most freshwater requirement is met from the Indus, a large share of the flows of which originates from snow and glacial melt in the upper catchment areas.

“Pakistan is using very divisive water allocation rules,” Steinbruner says, adding that we are not unique in this regard. Sharp trade-offs present themselves to the country: water for irrigation or power generation? Water for Punjab or Sindh? “The allocation patterns are based on unrealistically high estimates of availability” of water.

As a result, he goes on to say, pressures are building up within the country between those who want water diverted for power generation, versus the interests of agriculture; more specifically, the small and medium enterprises that cannot afford captive power plants versus agrarian interests. And these pressures are transmitting themselves up the political system.

“This situation is being very meaningfully intensified by major climate effects ... the net effect of which is to reduce the Indus water flows by 30pc from its historic base”.

So we have a system built on water, that already has a conflicted and divisive allocation pattern, and the water flows, on which it depends, are shrinking fast. Add to that the growing variability in rainfall over time and geographic space, and increasing ambient temperatures also affecting agricultural products. “What we’re seeing [in Pakistan]... are signs of increasingly violent stress in society, and it is being burdened by climate change.”

He concludes by saying Pakistan’s case is “not the only story, but it is the most dramatic story worldwide” at this time.

It’s worth remembering that WHO had been warning about possible travel curbs on Pakistanis for some time now, but serious action on the public health front remained limited.

It’s largely the same with climate. Warnings are gathering pace that Pakistan is in the firing line of major climatic disruptions, and much of that is already under way so we’re not talking about something in the distant future.

And something substantially similar is happening on the economic front, with growing deficits on the fiscal and external side year after year, making it necessary to seek one bailout after another, with bailouts getting bigger and domestic gas reserves drying up.

In the case of polio, some quarters have given statements decrying WHO’s measure, saying it will increase Pakistan’s isolation. What these people need to understand is that this is not politics any more — this is hard reality. The time for bargaining is long past.

It’s the same with the climate and economy — the warnings are there, the consequences are real in the sense that they cannot be negotiated. It’s good to see the government finally waking up to the threat posed by polio, although time will tell whether the steps they’re taking are meaningful or more eyewash. It would be nicer still to see a similar awakening concerning other issues that the country is facing, so we don’t end up discovering them at the last minute either.

The writer is a business journalist and 2013-2014 Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre, Washington D.C.

khurram.husain@gmail.com

Twitter: @khurramhusain