Pakistan is located in the most vulnerable region which is prone to intense climate change and natural disasters due to its diverse range of terrain stretching cylindrically from the Arabian Sea to the Himalayan peaks. The country is susceptible to wide-ranging hazards from droughts to floods to earthquakes to cyclones. Pakistan has been suffering from a major drought for the last four years, which is unfortunately continuing with varying degrees all over the country.
With the exception of drought years, Pakistan has suffered almost every year from floods as monsoon rains cause Rivers to overflow their banks. Almost all of Pakistan regularly experiences earthquakes ranging from moderate-to-severe in intensity. In addition, the coastal areas of the country are prone to cyclones. Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) by Maple Croft ranked Pakistan in 2009-10 as 29, but in 2010-11 it changed to 16, which shows that Pakistan is more vulnerable to disasters.
If proper measures are not taken, the cost of adaptation is likely to increase in the next few years. Adaptation costs in year 2010 was 5.75 billion US$, while losses of floods were estimated to be 5% of GDP alone in the same year, and these adaptation costs are likely to be more than 10% in the next 40 years ranging from 13-40 US$ per capita. The climate disaster adaptation costs are proposed to 2.03, 2.72, 3.76 billion US$ depending on the frequency of disasters low, medium, and high respectively during 2010-2050 (NEEDS, 2011).
Disaster Management is the organisation and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters. The World Disaster Management Day is, therefore, a crucial reminder for the policy and decision-makers, as well as all other stakeholders and the nation as a whole because all institutions and individuals have to play their role in averting and containing the threats.
The climate change is no more a myth as scientific evidence as well as occurrence of frequent floods, cyclones and droughts around the world, have proved beyond doubt that it is real. The fluctuations that occur from year-to-year and the statistics of extreme conditions such as severe storms or unusually hot seasons are part of the climatic variability.
Some slowly changing climatic phenomena can last for whole seasons or even years; the best known of these is the El Niño phenomenon. The difference now is that global temperatures have risen unusually rapidly over the last few decades. There is strong evidence of increase in average global air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising average global sea levels. The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report concludes that the global warming is unequivocal.
Atmosphere and ocean temperatures are higher than they have been at any other time during at least the past five centuries, and probably for more than a millennium. The IPCC has examined the published results from many different models and on the basis of the evidence has estimated that by 2100: the global average surface warming (surface air temperature change), will increase by 1.1 - 6.4°C; the sea level will rise between 18 and 59 cm; the oceans will become more acidic.
In the recent decades, the temperature over Pakistan has witnessed accelerated jumps compared to the global change in temperatures: the temperature of 53.7°C in Mohenjo-Daro broke the previous world records in May 2010 by breaking the last highest temperature recorded in 1919 with 530C in Jacobabad, a severe cyclonic storm "Phet" hit the Arabian Sea in May 2010 and "the Gonu" (in 2011) and "the Yamyin" (2007) also hit the Arabian Sea, which is a very rare phenomenon in the history of the Arabian Sea.
In 2007, temperature in Lahore broke the record of 78 years; it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent. It is also very likely that there will be more precipitation at higher latitudes and there will be less precipitation in most sub-tropical land areas and it is most probably that tropical cyclones like typhoons and hurricanes will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and heavier precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea surface temperatures.
Realising the threats and challenges, the government of Pakistan is in the process of finalising the National Climate Change Policy and Disaster Management Plans, which will surely help in addressing the threats posed by Climate Change and Natural Disasters in the near future.
(The writer is Director General (Climate Change and Environment) Planning and Development Division, Government of Pakistan, Islamabad)