October 28, 2024
By Asad Mumtaz
KARACHI
Addressing the growing severity of the climate crisis, civil society activists organised a climate march in Karachi, title Zindagi (life), at the Frere Hall.
The aim of the march was not only to highlight the impact of climate change and global warming, but to also protect the lives of millions of people affected by it. March participants demanded that the Government take immediate action to ensure climate justice, sustainability and environmental protection.
Victims of the Gujjar Nala and Malir Expressway demolitions as well as survivors of the 2022 floods also attended the rally. Environmental activists at the March expressed alarm at the effects of climate change being felt in Karachi.
“For the past several years, Pakistan has consistently ranked amongst the top ten most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. Our smaller glaciers are melting while our water resources are drying up,” said Zehra Khan, a trade unionist as well as one of the organisers of the March.
She also lambasted the Government’s decision to build more canals along Sindh’s already dam-ridden rivers.
“It is environmentally necessary for a river to reach the sea,” she asserted, explaining that diverting rivers may cause Sindh’s mangrove-rich deltas to dry up, exposing the land to a rapid sea incursion. Furthermore, redirecting natural waterways has also resulted in the desertification of several regions of the province. “Schemes that are unsustainable and which allow a select few to seize natural resources should be immediately discontinued.”
Abeera Ashfaq, a lawyer and human rights activist, explained that in Sindh, the settled communities of the Indus Delta, Badin and Thar have suffered the brunt of climate change.
“The livelihood and survival of these communities are tied to the cultivation of their lands,” she stated. “Forests are mowed down, the flow of the tributaries and rivers are disturbed, and lithium is extracted from the earth by industrialists without the consent or say of indigenous communities.”
“There is a need to sensitize society regarding the sheer scale of destruction climate change is wreaking,” environmental activist Saeed Khaskheli held.
According to a 2022 study, the coastal city is sinking five times faster than sea levels are rising. Even earlier in 2015, the Senate’s Standing Committee on Science and Technology issued a letter to then-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, expressing fears that if sea intrusion along the coast is not addressed, Karachi may be underwater by 2060.
Furthermore, continuous heatwaves since 2015 have raised the number of heat-related deaths to well in the thousands.