In October, the husband and wife pair of Munir Ahmad and Syeda, farmers of Laskhar Pur village in Pakistan's Duzafargarh district with their six children, should have been planting wheat. Only, they weren't for their four acres of land that normally produces two crops a year of cotton and wheat, had been damaged by the floods.
They had tried hard to protect their fields by building mud embankments, but the floods were unprecedented. The flooding destroyed their cotton crop that had been close to harvest.
The loss was not just of crops. Munir and Syeda lost the income they need to repay their debt and to finance their next wheat crop. Now, they will have to take out more loans to repair the damage to their land and to replace their store of seeds that was destroyed by the insects that have thrived in the wet conditions. They are not sure how they will continue to provide for their children in the future.
“We were growing cotton… the whole crop was ready to be picked. It’s been totally destroyed. To cultivate this crop we had taken out loans from our family… Now it’s all gone and we have nothing left except one cow. At the moment we have to survive on that to feed our children and ourselves,” says Munir. He and Syeda are hapless victims of weather-related disasters; they are victims of climate change.
A new Oxfam report More than ever: climate talks that work for those that need them most, says that 21,000 people died due to weather-related disasters in the first nine months of 2010 – more than twice the number for the whole of 2009. This year is on course to experience more extreme-weather events than the ten-year average of 770. It is one of the hottest years ever recorded with Pakistan logging 53.7°C – the highest ever in Asia.
Natural disasters, of course, are nothing new to talk about. Unless one can link them to climate change. The missing link comes from UNCTAD's The Least Developed Countries Report 2010. The report finds that there has been an increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in LDCs, with five times as many such incidents occurring from 2000 to 2010 as during the 1970s. During the period 2000-2010, LDCs recorded economic losses totalling $14.1 billion.
Oxfam says that poor women farmers from Bangladesh to Malawi do not need scientists to tell them their weather is becoming more unpredictable or that their seasons are shifting. Rightly so.
Just a quick overview of 2010:
- Arctic sea ice extent is the third lowest on record
- One of the Amazon’s major tributaries, the Rio Negro fell to its lowest levels since records began in 1902
- Pakistan logs the highest temperature ever recorded in Asia at 53.7° C
- In China alone flooding affects 140 million people and drought affects 51 million people
- 2010 has seen more than twice the number of lives lost as a result of climate-related disasters in its first three-quarters than the whole of 2009
- It is also on course to record a higher number of extreme weather events than the ten-year average of 770
While individual climate-related disasters cannot be attributed directly to climate change, such extreme weather events are likely to become more frequent and severe as a result of climate change in the future.
The climate negotiations in Cancun needs to talk more of the people who need the measures most. The rich countries must get it right.
