For nearly two months now, Pakistan has been suffering grave consequences of massive floods that engulfed two-thirds of the country, killing more than 1200 people including nearly 400 kids.
"Climate change is a global justice issue. Rich countries like our own pump out massive levels of carbon emissions, while poor countries like Pakistan have to pay for it. With their crops, their homes, their lives."
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 5, 2022
Me, on the Pakistani floods, on @MSNBC:pic.twitter.com/nqnEC5Gl4X
Monsoon rains are not foreign to Pakistan and other neighboring countries in Central and South Asia, but this year has been quite exceptional, as heavy rain continued to fall for several weeks.
In a country with more than 220 million people, floods have left damages estimated to cost $10 billion. It has also displaced more than 30 million people, in addition to more than 1200 deaths across the devastated country.
This aerial photograph taken on September 3, 2022 shows flooded residential areas in Jaffarabad district, Balochistan province. Monsoon rains have submerged a third of Pakistan, claiming at least 1,190 lives since June and unleashing powerful floods that have washed away swathes of vital crops and damaged or destroyed more than a million homes. (Photo by Banaras KHAN / AFP)
Among victims reported in Pakitan as a result of the floods since mid-June, more than 380 kids and more than 231 women have lost their lives.
While online platforms have shared photos showing the aftermath of the natural disaster in Pakistan, many activists pointed the blame on the world's richest countries, for their role in aggravating the climate crisis, which has triggered some of the most destructive floods in Pakistan's modern history.
Rich nations owe reparations to Pakistan for the climate disaster they have caused.
— Claudia Webbe MP (@ClaudiaWebbe) September 4, 2022
Social media commentators named the world's biggest industrial countries, particularly the United States and China, for their lack of action in terms of limiting CO2 emissions, which is regarded as the main driver of climate change over the last few decades.
Instead of just sharing pictures & videos of Pakistan floods to show sympathy by the Western leaders, rich countries must pay the loss & damage cause by the impact of their western economic growth. Global south are just the victims of climate change. Western media must tell this.
— Licypriya Kangujam (@LicypriyaK) August 29, 2022
Rich countries have not declared war on Pakistan but what their fossil fuel emissions have done to Pakistan is worse than any war
— GO GREEN (@ECOWARRIORSS) August 27, 2022
From devastating heat to devastating floods Pakistan is paying the price for west demand for more and more economic growth https://t.co/XKIlxthwPK
Internet people have also called on the global north to take immediate actions to tackle the climate crisis, regardless of its cost to their economies, saying that the world's poorest communities with the least contributions to the crisis are the ones paying the price, such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.
