THE Islamic Republic is currently a burning ball (read: hell). And so is much of its neighborhood. The subcontinent is right now the hottest place on earth. While extremely high temperatures are not uncommon for this time of the year, the swing from exceptionally cool weather of just a few weeks ago is hard to ignore. With such bipolarism, one can only hope that the next extreme is not a monsoon like that of two years ago.
To fall back on hope and for that to be the only plan is rather naive, for I might remind that neither global warming nor climate change is an unknown phenomenon. If anything, there are now countless who whip out terms like ‘adaptation’ and ‘resilient development’ at will. And now more than ever before ‘experts’ are said to be working in tandem with donors, governments, and businesses to usher us towards a ‘just global transition’ away from fossil fuels.
Pakistan is no different where the quota of experts has increased markedly in the last couple of years, especially since the 2022 floods. These ‘experts’ increasingly gather at conferences both at home and abroad. Consultants are hired and long reports are written. But virtually nothing is done.
To contextualize, picking on the words of Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, the global political economy continues to be structured around ‘fossil capital’. For over 200 years, coal and then oil have functioned as the ultimate global commodities, and the struggle to control them still shapes global politics. The continuing centrality of fossil capital worldwide makes a mockery of the notion that the rich and powerful, anywhere, are interested in reducing carbon emissions to prevent the planet from becoming unlikeable for humans.
Why this matters to me is because the sub-continental region is one which will experience widespread desertification if the current rate of heating continues. And yet those in the global north who milked the benefits of colonial-era expropriation, continue to disproportionately emit carbon to the detriment of South Asia’s working masses.
While that is abroad, at home the history and ongoing evolution of fossil capital is absent from the mainstream debate on climate change, let alone the policy prescriptions about so-called resilient development. While the experts do bring up the question of climate financing and the historic responsibility of the Western emitters, there is much silence on domestic economic policy especially a complete lack of focus on the state and class powers that preside over ecologically destructive development with no end in sight. What this means in simpler words is that there is no accountability of those in power; that no one seems to be interested in questioning the decisions that continue to wreak havoc across the country.
Generally, Pakistan’s political economy is centered around real estate, oil and coal-fired power, big infrastructure, and logistics. There is no respite for vulnerable ecosystems when the core areas continue to be developed intensively making them hotter while peripheries are expropriated and turned into ‘tourist havens’ making them hotter too.
To put it simply, much like global capitalism, Pakistani capitalism is a never-ending tale of disaster with even the rich diaspora providing a stream of hot cash for real estate, with little to no regard for future generations… but then again, fossil capital has never been characterized by the foresight of humanity and Pakistan is no different. So with conferences, we will continue but will they offer anything more than mere lip service is yet to be seen.
—The writer is Associate Editor with a focus on climate change, daily Pakistan Observer, Islamabad.
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