At the launch of a new United Nations appeal for aid on Tuesday, Pakistan’s minister for climate change stated that her country could not afford to spend any more money on the process of recovering from the devastating floods that have been attributed to climate change. She also made a plea for faster international assistance.
After weeks of unprecedented flooding in Pakistan, the United Nations increased its humanitarian appeal for the country by a factor of five, from $160 million to $816 million. This was done as a result of a surge in water-borne diseases and the fear of growing hunger, both of which posed new dangers.
At a conference in Geneva focused on providing assistance to Pakistan, the minister for climate change, Sherry Rehman, stated that “We have no space to provide our economy any stimulus” and that “the developed world should hasten funding for climate hit calamities.”
The floods have killed almost 1,700 people and inundated large sections of the South Asian country. There are currently hundreds of thousands of people living outside who have been displaced.
Flooding caused by record monsoon rains and high glacial melt in northern mountains has affected 33 million people out of a total population of 220 million and is estimated to have cost $30 billion in damages by the government.
The calamity has been placed at the feet of climate change by both the government and the United Nations.
The goal of $816 million for the appeal was described as “absolutely not enough” by Julien Harneis, who serves as the resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator for the United Nations in Pakistan.
According to Rehman, Pakistan is in dire need of additional food supplies and medications to treat its population of 8.2 million people, and it would need to import more supplies.
The Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, stated during the meeting that Pakistan was “on the precipice of a public health crisis.”
