ISLAMABAD: Water is the core issue of today and adaptive measures are needed to cope with challenges, a leading Pakistani academic and scholar said on Wednesday.

At a public talk on ‘Global Climate Change and Its Implications for Pakistan’, Dr Adil Najam said: “Water is to adaption what carbon is to mitigation. In today’s world the frontline issues are mostly about water.”

Dr Najam is the dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University and one of the early scholars to work on and popularise the idea of adaptation and climate change impact in developing countries.

The talk was organised by the Institute of Strategic Studies as part of its Distinguished Lecture series.

Leading academic gives public talk on climate change and its implications for Pakistan

Dr Najam said that for a country like Pakistan, which depends solely on water and is facing acute shortage, climate is no longer a future challenge.

“We are now living in the age of adaptation. Climate change is no longer just a challenge of tomorrow that needs to be averted. It is now a reality of today that has to be managed,” he said.

According to recent reports, Pakistan ranks third in the world among countries facing an acute water shortage. Researchers predict that it will become the most water-stressed country in the region by 2040.

Pakistan is in its 10th consecutive year of flood and 4th consecutive year of drought. However, these things do not make headlines anymore, Dr Najam said.

“We need to have a better transport system to avoid pollution; better infrastructure with better urban planning in terms of housing,” he said.

Even nature adapts so easily that we have seen the spread of dengue and other diseases to the north as mosquitoes move from warmer to colder places.

He said that vulnerability was inversely proportional to how much countries contribute. Even though some developing countries have taken the lead in many ways, most have stepped back, Dr Najam said.

“Institutional failures of any sort cause disruption in the social fabric of a country,” he observed.

“We have passed the age of mitigation and have entered the age of adaptation.”

Countries which are emitting the most of carbon waste are those which are least affected by the climate change; almost 80pc of the wealth of the world lies with the 20pc of the elite, Dr Najam said.

Climate change is a global phenomenon which needs to be dealt in a wholesome manner as everyone is affected by its fallout. If water is the frontline issue, then food is a key issue as well.

Dr Najam spoke about climate and security, one of the dimensions of which is violence. At the state level, it is clear that insecurity is shown as war. However, there is also insecurity at the societal level as well, which is why the number of civil violence deaths has been eight times more than those caused by war.

Pakistan is a country that is totally defined by the climate which is changing rapidly, Dr Najam said, citing the Attabad disaster as a prime example of climate change.

Earlier, in his opening remarks, ISSI Director General Ambassador Aizaz Chaudhry said that the so-called traditional security discourse is also incomplete without the climate change issue.

Pakistan is one of the countries at great risk of the impacts of climate change. For Pakistan, water scarcity is one of the biggest security challenges arising out of the climate change issue, he said.

The institute’s chairman, Ambassador Khalid Mahmood in his concluding remarks said that there was now a growing awareness of the effects of climate change. Ignoring the impacts of climate change is no longer a luxury that any country can afford, least of all, Pakistan, he said.

Pakistan has to increase efforts in the context of common but differentiated responsibilities to reduce domestic emissions from all sectors, he suggested.

At the same time, the government should assess and identify most affected and vulnerable communities and develop national and local adaptation strategies on how to deal with the impacts, relying on international support to do this.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2019