Sharif warns UN: Pakistan’s ‘catastrophic’ floods are just the prelude

The “catastrophic” floods that hit Pakistan this summer are just a prelude to the rest of the planet facing the consequences of climate change, the Asian country’s Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif warned on Friday from the floor of the United Nations.

“Pakistan has never before experienced such an absolute and devastating demonstration of the effects of climate change (…). One thing is clear: what happened in Pakistan will not be limited to Pakistan,” Mr. Sharif stressed.

For the Pakistani prime minister, “the very definition of national security has changed today and if the world’s leaders do not come together and act now on a minimum common agenda, there will be no more Earth to fight wars on.”

“Nature will fight back and humanity is not strong enough for that,” Shabaz Sharif stressed in his extremely heavy-handed speech to the General Assembly.

Since June, nearly 1,600 people have died in Pakistan due to floods caused by torrential monsoon rains, which have been intensified by global warming, according to experts and Pakistani officials. It flooded a third of Pakistan, an area equal to that of the whole of Britain, destroying houses, shops, roads, bridges, agricultural crops.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who visited the country earlier this month, said he had “never seen a climate catastrophe of this magnitude” and called on countries most responsible for pollution to “stop this madness”, referring to investments in fossil fuels.

RES-EMP

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