PAKPATTAN: Tending to his wilting wheat crop after months of drought and smog, Pakistani farmer Aamer Hayat Bhandara said his biggest hope for Thursday’s election is that whoever wins makes good on a flurry of campaign promises to tackle climate change.

The two frontrunners — PML-N and the PPP — have both proposed similar climate policies in their manifestos, highlighting growing concern about the effects of global warming after devastating 2022 floods.

“The smog and absence of rain for three consecutive months robbed crops of sunlight … and caused rust - or fungal infection — on wheat,” said Bhandara, 38, a farmer in Punjab province and co-founder of the Agriculture Republic think-tank, which represents small- and medium-scale farmers.

He said changing climate patterns had shortened winters and stretched summers, with heatwaves impacting his rice and corn crops, while untimely rains and hailstorms have battered his wheat harvests.

That made the parties’ promises for climate action - from boosting renewable energy to investing in early warning systems for floods and heatwaves - welcome reading for him and other farmers at the sharp end of climate change.

“The pledges are wonderful,” Bhandara said. “Heightened climate action not only holds the potential to ease economic pressures but also to generate employment opportunities.” He added, however, that “the crux of the challenge is to translate these policies into action”.

Pakistan produces less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but ranks 8th among countries most vulnerable to extreme weather linked to climate change, according to the latest edition of the Global Climate Risk Index.

The floods in 2022 killed more than 1,700 people, displaced 8 million and destroyed about a million homes and livelihoods across the country of 220 million — fuelling calls for the government to prioritise the fight against climate change.

Climate ‘front and centre’

Outlining his party’s plans to overhaul Pakistan’s development model to stabilise its troubled economy, PPP leader Bilawal Bhutto Zardari told Reuters this month his strategy would put “the threat of climate change front and centre”.

He said the PPP also aims to ensure global funds exceeding $10 billion pledged last year to help Pakistan rebound from the floods are used to fight climate change.

Similarly, the PMLN has vowed to use the funds to implement the Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Framework, dubbed 4RF, a recovery strategy to build long-term climate resilience and adaptation developed with international organisations.

The party’s proposals also include strict enforcement of environmental protection laws, upgrading brick kilns to fight air pollution, and planting native tree species to curb the use of fertilisers, reduce soil erosion and save water, among others.

Party president Shehbaz Sharif has described climate change as a “development, economic, human and national security issue”.

Economists warn that a lack of adequate measures to fight the effects of climate change could deal another blow to a cash-strapped economy already grappling with historic inflation and an unstable rupee currency.

A 2022 World Bank report highlighted Pakistan’s staggering financial requirements to combat climate-induced disasters, estimating a $300 billion gap in available funds.

Without urgent action, climate change could shave off one-fifth of GDP, it said.

But Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer and activist, said the frontrunners’ election manifestos neglected the economic effects of climate change.

“The transformative effects that (the) climate crisis brings to our economy such as the effects on the market economy of agriculture, coastal resources, energy, forestry, tourism, and water are overlooked,” he said.

Authorities often fail to implement their policies, he added.

“Climate governance necessitates a tailored, province-specific approach rather than a federal, one-size-fits-all strategy,” Alam said by phone from the city of Lahore.

Others have voiced concern that the party manifestos pay scant attention to communities displaced by climate-related disasters or those in climate hotspots including low-lying coastal areas and mountainous regions threatened by glacial melting.

But environmental activists and farmers have broadly welcomed the focus on climate issues for the first time in this year’s election campaign.

Lahore-based climate activist Mawra Muzaffar said she had seen progress in Sindh province under the PPP that showed what could be achieved - from growing mangroves to importing electric buses.

The PML-N’s vows to boost the use of clean energy in agriculture through solar panels are realistic and feasible, she said.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2024

Header image: A labourer walks past cotton crops damaged by flood waters at Sammu Khan Bhanbro village in Sukkur. — AFP