Economic deluge nigh in Pakistan

The videos of the catastrophic monsoon floods in Pakistan are scarcely believable; such is the vast volume of water tearing down mountain valleys, carrying away everything before it.

Reports say the floods have submerged a third of the country, killing more than 1 200 people and leaving millions homeless. The physical devastation is about to be followed by economic devastation in the cash-strapped country as food prices have already started soaring, due to many farming areas either being under water, or cut off.

This has put the many staple foods out of the reach of the poor, pushing the government to consider emergency measures to achieve stability. The inundation is being spoken of as the worst in recorded history in the South Asian country and the intensity of the rains is being attributed to global climate change.

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Although Pakistan is the world’s fifth-most populous country, it contributes just 1% of the annual global emissions of CO2 – which has been fingered as the cause of the shocking changes to weather patterns worldwide.

This could be a grim harbinger of things to come as the poorer and less developed countries have to unfairly bear the real consequences of this human-made climate change.