Cooler heads required to combat South Asia’s climate crisis

From the eastern shores of the Bay of Bengal to the western stretches of the Arabian Sea; from the northern plains at the foothills of the Himalayas to the southern rim of the Indian Ocean, South Asia is wilting under an unprecedented heatwave. To fight this common adversary that refuses to recognize several thousand miles of over-patrolled bilateral borders, the regional response to this climate crisis is a shocking coldness rather than collaboration.

Consider events from recent days. This week the lead headline on a digital newspaper in Pakistan screamed: “Five cities clock over 50 degrees.” Another splashed a shocking picture of Islamabad’s iconic Margalla Hills ablaze. Thousands of trees were burnt down triggered by the heatwave. Another video from a Sindh town that went viral shows bushes spontaneously combusting. Pakistani disaster management authorities have warned that mass migrations caused by climate distress may break out.

The week before, New Delhi chalked up the highest temperature recorded in Indian history at 52 degrees before that too was broken a day later by Pune city where it crossed 53 degrees. On the last day of the Indian national election, 33 polling staff died of heatstroke. In Bangladesh capital Dhaka, police have been handing out free water bottles to pedestrians and motorcycle riders. Sri Lankan authorities have been putting out regular heatwave alerts, unusual for a country that is already tropically hot by default. Maldives has doubled up on voicing concerns at rising sea levels caused by the climate crisis threatening the very existence of the country comprising over 2,000 tiny islands. There have been reports of people fainting at Pak-Afghan border crossings.

There are no formal bilateral or multilateral responses in the region to an obviously deepening climate crisis that recognizes no borders.

- Adnan Rehmat

While South Asia, which houses one fifth of humanity, is not the only region of the globe fighting calamities like heatwaves, flooding, drought and gale force hurricanes, it is perhaps the only part of the world not fighting climate-induced calamities together. There are no formal bilateral or multilateral responses in the region to an obviously deepening climate crisis that recognizes no borders and of which the current heatwave is just the latest phenomenon. Soon monsoons will sweep the region and drench hundreds of millions in misery as life comes to a wet halt in many places.

This is ironic because at the heart of many bilateral disputes in South Asia are climate-related issues. Whether its diverting waters for its own use by building dams in Kashmir by India and preventing it flowing downstream into the River Indus in Pakistan or releasing floodwater into otherwise dry rivers in Punjab that wreak havoc in Pakistan’s crop heartland at the wrong time, to the long-running Ganges water dispute between Delhi and Dhaka, there’s plenty to fuel the flames of political disputes. Then every winter, Delhi and Lahore spar over a debilitating haze that envelops both countries affecting millions when their farmers burn crop stubble to make way for a new cycle of seasonal farming.

Considering that South Asia is both a large contributor to climate change triggers as well as one of the most vulnerable climate crisis victims, there is an urgent need to work out collaborative solutions. National policies outlining commitments to mitigation and adapting to a changing climate are not enough. There is scope for a cohesive regional strategy to achieve common climate goals.

One obvious solution is reinvigorating the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) comprising eight countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka – that was established in the 1980s to promote socio-economic development of the region. However, it has over the years become virtually dysfunctional due to bilateral political sparring between Delhi and Islamabad, thereby overshadowing its main mandate.

Considering its still significant infrastructural and human resources, it is time SAARC is revived to focus on marshalling collective responses and resources to mitigate the climate crisis engulfing the whole region. This is not far-fetched. Last year Iran sent a special plane to help put out a raging inferno engulfing the world’s largest juniper forests near its border inside Pakistan in Balochistan. This helped save some of the oldest trees on the planet in the Ziarat forest.

Repurposing SAARC to combat the climate crisis may even lead to expanded collaboration on hardcore socio-economic solutions, which are increasingly becoming hard to differentiate from climate issues. To start with, the climate and environment ministers of member states should meet to discuss a common charter on a united climate crisis response for the region. Fighting the climate crisis is one fight where no one loses; everybody wins.

- Adnan Rehmat is a Pakistan-based journalist, researcher and analyst with interests in politics, media, development and science. Twitter: @adnanrehmat1