Today, Explained - Pakistan wants climate reparations

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

After catastrophic flooding, Pakistani people are demanding better disaster management from their government. Their government wants reparations from wealthy countries. This episode was produced by Haleema Shah, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Noel King. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained   Support Today, Explained by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For weeks, we've been hearing about the damage that flooding has done to Pakistan. And truthfully, it's easy to get lost in the accounting. 1,500-plus people dead, 30 million-plus displaced, 70% of crop staples destroyed. It's less easy to shake an image that the United Nations Agency for Children, UNICEF, offers. The water isn't receding, and it might not for months in some areas. So kids and their families are sleeping next to pools of stagnant water

that is full of feces, fertilizer, and disease. They're drinking that water to survive. Coming up on Today explained how an added twist to this year's rainy season caused this cataclysm and the case that Pakistan is making to rich countries that they are owed help. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas.

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You're listening to Today's Express Point. My name is Zoha Siddiqui. I am a journalist based in Pakistan, and I cover the environment, technology, and human rights. The Karakoram is a mountain range that stretches from Pakistan to India to China, and the highest point of the Karakoram is the K2, which is located in Pakistan,

and it is the second highest mountain in the world. So a couple of years ago, I trekked up to the Hopar Glacier, which is in Pakistan's north. It's in a place called Gilgit-Baltistan. And it was an incredible sight because it's pin drop silence, right? Because you're so far away from civilization and you can hear the sound of your own breath because it's at such a high altitude

and then you can also hear this faint echo and that faint echo is the glacier slowly melting. It's not a drip, drip, drip, but it's an echo as if there's some sort of movement taking place. And what that means is that the volume of the glacier is decreasing. And if you go see it right now, it's basically a gray mass of rock, ice and sludge, because there have been landslides there recently. And it's located right at the foothills of the Karakoram mountain range. And so the backdrop of the glacier is this majestic, beautiful, white mountain.

And at the bottom, there's this massive mass of gray ice, rock, and sludge that's slowly making its way south. So in the north you've got an abundance of glaciers, over 7,000, and in the south you've got a desert. You've got a river that runs from the north of the country right down to the south where it sinks into the Arabian Sea. And so you've got deserts, you've got mountains, you've got glaciers, you've got hills and valleys. And so there's a lot to see,

but that also makes Pakistan extremely vulnerable to climate change because when glaciers melt in the north, they increase the volume of water in this river, which then travels south, inundates villages and towns, which also form the country's breadbasket. Zoha, this flooding, as bad as it is, is not Pakistan's first experience with this kind of catastrophe. 2010, it was inundated. And the lesson that it took away to prepare for the next disaster was what? So lessons were learned after the 2010 floods, but they weren't implemented. And Pakistan continued along the path of dam building and grand scale infrastructure projects, instead of

focusing on developing a robust early warning system, or climate resilient housing for communities living in vulnerable areas. Pakistan is obsessed with dams. They really and truly are. In fact, four years ago, Pakistanis crowdfunded $40 million for the construction of a mega dam, the Dharmir Bhasha Dam on the Indus River, after the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court heralded it as a magical solution for Pakistan's water wars, flooding and power problems, which just goes to show how popular dams are in everyday discourse and how they've been promoted as a magical solution to the country's problems. Except this year, dams burst and exacerbated the extent of flooding. Can you talk about how much of Pakistan is

flooded and what that looks like? Nearly a third of the country is flooded. Our houses have collapsed because of the floods. We had a home and it was enough for us. Now all our belongings are buried under 12 to 13 feet of water. 30 million people have been impacted as a consequence. The climate change minister described it as a climate change disaster of epic proportions. We've all been reeling from climate shock. It's worse than the floods we saw in 2010, both in terms of its magnitude and in terms of the region that has been affected. So, I mean, in my lifetime, this is probably the worst natural disaster I have ever seen. I saw a picture online the other

day of a Pakistani man and a little boy, and they were wading through water and the bottoms of their clothes were soaking wet. And it really drove home the fact that these floods have been going on for months and the water is not receding, at least in some places. Why is the water stagnating this way? The reason why the floods this year are worse is because the areas that are inundated are far from the river. And so for water to recede, it needs to recede to a particular source. And if the place that is underwater is far from the river, where will the water go? The volume and scale of water that's come down is so consistent and without gaps for eight weeks that there's been nowhere to put the water when we, you know, drain it out. Where do you put it? And the reason why these places are underwater is because the floods that have taken place this year are a combination of floods because of rainfall

and floods because of glacial melt, right? So there are districts that were already inundated because of rainfall when the flood arrived. And that has, of course, increased the volume of water in these places. And so when there's no place for the water to go, it will remain. And it will remain for days and months. You know, nearly 1,500 people are estimated to be dead.

Damages so far have been put at about $30 billion. In Sindh, where I'm based, which is Pakistan's southernmost province, 90% of crops have been ruined. Farmer Gopi has been sleeping in an open field for a week. Our homes are gone. We have nothing. I was able to grow my own vegetables back home, and everything is gone now. I can't even feed my children. As a person there on the ground, you have heard a lot from people who've been affected. Tell me about a story or two, a person or two, a family or two who have stayed with you.

Yeah, so I spoke with this family who lives in a village called Chokhi Jamali in the southwest province of Balochistan. And they told me that all the mud-baked homes in their village, Chokhi Jamali in the southwest province of Balochistan. And they told me that all the mud-baked homes in their village, Chokhi Jamali, had been washed away. So Mariam Jamali was one of my sources. Mariam was seven years old when the 2010 floods took place. She's 19 now, and her family associates water with trauma. And so when the rain started in June,

her family was in denial. They said the floods won't happen. There's no possibility that something similar to what happened in 2010 could potentially occur again. And so they were the last to evacuate. And her elderly grandmother was the last person in their family to leave. She was eventually evacuated on a tractor. Her grandmother, every day,

she asks her when they're going back, but there's no going back because the home no longer exists. I spoke to this other gentleman who is in a town called Lesbela, which is also in the province of Balochistan, and he told me that the graveyards are inundated. And so if someone passes away, there's no place to bury them, which is just, it's horrifying. I mean, in these situations, in disaster situations, people do need, they do need someone to blame. Who are folks blaming? Yeah. So to a large extent, folks on ground are blaming the Pakistani government for the catastrophe that has taken place. Some flood victims, like Maryam

Jamali, in fact, who live in areas that were flooded by the 2010 super flood, are now questioning why more wasn't done in the past decade to floodproof their communities, why climate resilient housing wasn't encouraged and why the government poured in all their money into building mega projects like dams that essentially did nothing to prevent the floods from taking place. What is the government now saying it's going to do for people who've been affected? The immediate promise is that they'll be given some sort of relief in terms of payments, right? But apart from that, nothing. And folks that have been on ground receiving aid have primarily been receiving aid from non-profits and from mutual aid networks. They're the folks that are on ground,

that are going from village to village and door to door and documenting what's happening. Okay, so that's what the government is promising Pakistanis who've been affected. At the same time, what is the Pakistani government saying to the international community? So to the international community, they're essentially saying... We will certainly learn from our experience, but I think the global community should stand by us today. They want climate reparations from the global north, specifically from countries that have a larger carbon footprint and that contribute more to emissions. When countries like mine are affected in the front line of climate disasters one after another, despite our poor planning, I mean, that's a separate issue.

That does not cause the heat waves that trigger so many of our cataclysms and catastrophes, including, you know, 50... And their argument for this is that Pakistan contributes less than 1% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and that they deserve compensation for the loss and damage incurred as a consequence. Does Pakistan have a strong case for climate reparations? A pretty strong case, in my opinion, right? Because Pakistan is among the country's most vulnerable to climate change. It faces a rate of warming considerably above global average, with a potential rise of 1.3 to 4.9 degrees Celsius by the 2090s. And the economy and the people of this country are suffering and

they need all the assistance they can get. One of the main voices calling for reparations comes from the Minister of Climate Change, Sherry Rahman. How has the international community been responding to what she's been saying? So there haven't been any immediate responses, as per my knowledge, but there is an existing trend of rich countries not pledging money to adapt to climate shocks, right, and expressing reluctance to engage in meaningful negotiations about financing loss and damage suffered by countries like Pakistan that have contributed negligibly to emissions. The annual UN climate change talks are going to take place in Egypt in November, where Pakistan is planning on pushing hard for polluters to pay up after a year of devastating drought, floods, heat waves,

forest fires, you name it. Coming up, a former ambassador from Pakistan to the U.S. tells us whether he thinks this push for reparations will work. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family, and Aura says it's never been easier thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an Aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew

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Now, as catastrophic as things are in Pakistan right now, the country is not shy about making demands, specifically for climate reparations. And it has the clout to ask very powerful members of the international community for help. told us that Pakistan is like the ball in a great game being played by world powers. The U.S. wants badly to influence it. China, which is much closer geographically, also wants influence in Pakistan. Ambassador Hussain Haqqani is the director of South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, and he was Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. during the 2010 floods, when the U.S. was very keen to help Pakistan. American NGOs, American foundations, the private sector, American churches, they were all very generous towards Pakistan because they saw Pakistan as an ally, and they saw millions of people in Pakistan who were allied to the United States

as being in trouble. The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps are rushing 10 Osprey aircraft like these to Pakistan as part of U.S. aid efforts to the flood-ravaged country. That sentiment is no longer existent. If anything, Pakistan and the U.S. have drifted apart. And because they have drifted apart, even the will to provide humanitarian assistance has diminished somewhat. OK, so U.S. support is not what it once was. The other player in this great game is China. What has China done for Pakistan recently? Pakistan is very close to China. We are gathered to receive that aid from China

and also to appreciate the government of China, His Excellency President Xi Jinping, and the people of China for their abiding love and affiliation for the people of Pakistan. 30% of Pakistan's debt is owed to China. Pakistan and the United States have a functional relationship. It's not as warm as it used to be. And that is reflected in the fact that at the time of the 2010 floods,

the United States contributed more than a billion dollars towards rehabilitation and reconstruction for flood victims. This time, that contribution is only $53 million so far. China, on the other hand, has never been a huge humanitarian and other aid giver, but it has been a big lender. And they have neither given Pakistan any debt relief, nor have they given a large amount of support in rehabilitation and reconstruction aid. Their aid is around 57 million at this moment. Do you think that the United States or China

or any other country that is a major emitter of carbon is likely to pay Pakistan reparations? I think that reparations are not a practical thing in the modern world anyway. All reparations are paid only when somebody can enforce them. And when there is no enforcement mechanism, people generally do not pay reparations. So it is a great, shall we say, a great one-liner to say that the big emitters of the past, those who have polluted the world, have a responsibility towards paying the poorer countries that are suffering from their past excesses. And maybe it's even a fair point to make at an academic level. But in the real world, I do not see any major country paying Pakistan reparations. On the other hand, what is more likely to happen is that the international community can be persuaded to provide Pakistan relief assistance because there is a human tragedy unfolding.

And the world has a track record of rising to helping nations that are afflicted with humanitarian tragedies. Beijing, as you said, has promised $57 million in assistance. It's Pakistan's main ally here. What do you think of that amount? In this particular instance, China has just not been generous enough. Pakistan will need something between $10 to $12 billion to deal with flood relief, flood rehabilitation, and post-flood reconstruction. People have lost homes, farmers have lost crops, they have lost their livestock, and a lot of infrastructure has been permanently damaged. All of that will require a lot of resources. The one thing China could do for Pakistan very easily is to give it debt relief.

One third of Pakistan's debt is owed to China. China has a track record of not giving debt relief to most countries, unlike the Western countries and Japan, who have a long history of providing aid and providing loans, development loans, which then they either forgive or reschedule. China does not have the experience of providing debt relief. But that's a very flimsy argument. I think that they need to actually providing debt relief. But that's a very flimsy argument. I think that they need to actually provide debt relief as a way of helping the Pakistan government in finding the additional

resources that will be needed for dealing with the post-flood rehabilitation and reconstruction. China's $57 million to an ally in distress seems low in a relative sense, because in 2010, the U.S. gave Pakistan a billion dollars. Why did the U.S. drop from a billion dollars to $53 million this time around? Pakistan in 2010 was seen as a critical ally of the United States. It was a country that was expected to help the United States, stabilize Afghanistan, keep the Taliban at bay, make sure that there was some kind of an outcome in Afghanistan in which the U.S. could readily withdraw its troops.

What has changed since then is that Pakistan is now seen in the United States as a country that did not help America in Afghanistan. There is a feeling that Pakistan supported the Taliban towards victory. As a result, there is a sense of negativity towards Pakistan among policymakers and in policy circles. Also, there is no readily appropriated large packet of money that can be reallocated towards flood relief in Pakistan. Both of those factors are at play. I see. So unfortunately, Ambassador, what you're saying is some of this response is just the brutal fact of which countries matter on the world stage at which time and in what ways they matter. Absolutely. It is a brute reality.

The United States has less interest in the region. The United States used to have Pakistan as an ally at a time when India was not willing to be an American ally. Now India is a major American ally and partner, and there is no geopolitical need of Pakistan per se. Furthermore, Pakistan's own track record in relation to the United States has disturbed American policymakers too much. They think that we have poured money into Pakistan, we have given them aid, we have cut off aid, and nothing works with Pakistan. Pakistan does what it thinks is right for itself, and its leaders are too preoccupied with competing with or going against India than they are interested even in the welfare of their

own people. Now, that opinion is the real reason why American policymakers are not going to commit any significant resources or effort to try and wean Pakistan away from China. By that logic, Ambassador, there really is no great game. The United States has given up playing. I am one of those who thinks that there has never been a great game. And I think great games were fine during the 19th and early 20th century. They don't make sense in a world in which there is considerable economic interdependence. Pakistan, which has a much smaller economy, will always be

considered less important than India, and its desire to try and go head to head with India will always keep it at a disadvantage. What does all of this mean for ordinary Pakistanis who will continue to face the effects of climate change? It is unfortunate that people have to pay the price of the wrong decisions of their leaders, but Pakistan's leaders have made a succession of wrong decisions, unfortunately. As far as the price of climate change is concerned, it's not just Pakistan. Many countries are going to pay the price of climate change. The consequence of denial of climate science has been enormous everywhere. What's happening in Pakistan should be a wake-up call that if we do not and cannot help Pakistan, then tomorrow there will be another region and another country that will have a

similar catastrophe on its hands. So the world as a whole needs to take matters relating to climate change much more seriously. We should also not be hopeless because 220 million people are not going to roll over and play dead. Today's show was produced by Halima Shah. We had sound design and engineering by Paul Robert Mouncey. We were edited by Matthew Collette and fact-checked by Laura Bullard. It's Today Explained. I'm Noelle King. Thank you. you