Since June the floods in Pakistan have affected 33 million and killed roughly 1500. How much responsibility do big polluters in the west have for natural disasters like the floods in Pakistan which were intensified by climate change?
Climate change contributed to these floods. True in a recent study researchers found that climate change is likely to have played a role in the floods. Researchers said climate change may have increased the intensity of rainfall. The majority of flood water came from extreme monsoons which was increased in intensity by up to 50 percent in the last 100 years. Researchers say this increase would have been less likely without a rapid increase in greenhouse gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. The record rainfall that fell in August over Sindh and Balochistan the worst affected regions in Pakistan South were 726 percent and 590 percent higher than the monthly average.
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Scientists said that because of the natural variability from year to year in Monsoon rains in the region their model contained inherent uncertainties. But even if Monsoon variability makes it difficult to quantify the exact impact of climate change on rainfall, Pakistan’s extreme flooding is exactly what climate projections have been predicting for years.
Pakistan’s floods were also made worse by rivers breaking their Banks and Glacier Lakes bursting. All in all, it’s safe to say the intense rainfall that caused the devastating floods was made worse by global heating. Changing weather patterns and extreme weather events are linked to rising temperatures.
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The planet’s warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions which trap the sun’s heat in our atmosphere as they blanket the Earth. And who emits greenhouse gases? Well almost everyone but rich countries are responsible for around 50 percent of greenhouse gases released from fossil fuels and Industry.
The global climate system is all connected, it means that the emissions that happen in Pakistan and the emissions that happen all around the world are getting into the atmosphere where they mix and distribute around the globe. So even emissions that happen somewhere else will affect regions that are far off from where they originally happened. So we all play a role in worsening the climate crisis. But the world’s wealthiest Nations typically emit more and so bear more responsibility.
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