Friday, June 16, 2023

Forests, trees as carbon offsets

Aijaz A. Nizamani 
Published June 16, 2023 





ECOLOGISTS and environmentalists have, for many decades, advocated for sustainable forms of economic development. The world has been on an expansive yet destructive development path over the last century. While there can be no denying the benefits to humanity of this rapid development and economic expansion — particularly after 1850 and the discovery of oil — environmentalists have been rightly arguing that improving humanity’s living standards need not be at the cost of the planet.

The most glaring manifestation of unsustainable development is the carbon dioxide emissions of nearly 40 billion tonnes a year which countries and companies have been pumping into the atmosphere. These make for cumulative emissions of over 2.5 trillion tonnes from 1850 to 2021. Finally, there now seems to be some hope, as both global policymakers and business leaders are a little more prepared to respond to existential risks associated with carbon dioxide emissions.

There can be no denying that rich people in rich countries have brought the world to the brink of climate disaster. It is the poor people in poor countries who have borne the brunt of their unsustainable development. The rains in Pakistan in 2022 were attributable to climate change. Over a third of the country at one stage was under water, resulting in several hundred casualties and the displacement of millions of poor. Similarly, villagers beneath the glaciers in Pakistan’s north remain at increased risk solely due to anthropocentric reasons. We hear stories of entire villages being decimated by a moving glacier, the risk of which has increased in a warmer world.

Human civilisations have used fossil fuels for over a millennium, starting with coal. Still, the Industrial Revolution and the discovery of oil changed the scenario rapidly. The world temperature, which had been stable for hundreds of years, suddenly started rising with fossil fuel-based economic expansion, creating an existential threat to humanity. There has been a 1.28 degrees Celsius increase in average global temperatures, and scientists have warned that parts of the globe, including South Asia, will become unhabitable over the coming few decades. In Pakistan, areas like Mehar and Kachho along the right bank areas of the Indus, which were flooded last year, are already routinely above 50°C in summer.

Led by climate science, policymakers and businesses are responding to the emissions issue.

The good news is the world at last seems to be grappling with the challenge. Led by climate science, policymakers and businesses are responding to the emissions issue. Voters in the democratic world are pressuring their leaders for concrete action. The world is on the path of zero emissions over the next 50 years. OECD members like the US and EU have pledged to be net zero by 2050, China by 2060 and India by 2070. Similarly, businesses are strategising net-zero plans whereby their emissions would be progressively reduced to zero, corresponding to host country pledges.

Global leaders are currently grappling with the question that, even in a net-zero world, trillions of tonnes of greenhouse gases will still be in the atmosphere. There has to be a policy and business case to take these emissions back from the atmosphere and store them in trees or the geological locations where they were taken from.

The world is looking at nature-based solutions. What we learned in primary school is that trees and plants, while growing, absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen into the atmosphere. There is a major rush of businesses investing in raising forests which would sequester carbon dioxide and allow investing companies to offset their emissions (or trade them) against forest-based carbon offsets. This new science and economics model places a monetary value on a tree in the form of the carbon stored in it while it is alive and which can be traded as a carbon offset in the international market. The price of a carbon offset can vary — as low as $10 a tonne to over $100, considering the offset’s quality (which is basically documentation and transparency).

The Sindh government has completed one such transaction through Sindh forest department, whereby a carbon offset from a mangrove forest in the Indus delta has been sold to international buyers. This is such a novel approach that some of Pakistan’s generalist policymakers initially thought the companies would cut and remove the forest to take carbon out of it and complete the transaction! The reality is the amount raised, which runs into millions of dollars each year, will ensure more investment in raising forests and for the betterment of local communities. The transacted forest will not only continue to stand and grow but also give more carbon offset revenue for the next 60 years to the government.

Scientists and technologists have also created technology-based options for what is called ‘Direct Air Capture’ or ‘Carbon Capture and Storage. Currently, the world’s largest DAC system has a capacity of only 4,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide (imagine that against emissions of 40bn tonnes) and costs well over $1,000 per tonne. Compared to that, nature-based solutions or forest-based removal costs are just a few dollars a tonne, and it comes with immense biodiversity and community benefits. However, we should not underestimate human ingenuity: technology-based carbon removal costs will eventually come down, as we have seen in the case of computing power and the cost of solar energy.

As public policy, it should not be about technology versus nature-based solutions. The two should reinforce each other. The vast computing power we have today and technologies like satellites can be hugely helpful in afforestation, monitoring and verification mechanisms to sell carbon offsets.

Pakistan’s economy is overwhelmingly dependent on irrigation and raising deep-rooted trees like the Kikar, which removes excess water through higher evapotranspiration rates. The 2022 rains reminded farmers that agriculture cannot be sustainable without forestry in irrigation plains. This crisis has created unique international and local convergence that makes investments in forestry on private farmlands a viable proposition. New business models and an enabling policy are the need of the hour.

The writer is a retired secretary of the forest & wildlife department and ex-chief conservator of forests.
aijazniz@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2023
Wheat for all

Tabinda Ashraf Shahid 
Published June 16, 2023



FOOD insecurity in Pakistan has aggravated sharply over the past few years, the inevitable outcome of persistent political instability and declining economic health. With one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, poverty, and vulnerability to climate change, Pakistan’s road to nutritional sufficiency has been long and tumultuous.

A key challenge preventing governments here from formulating a clear roadmap to nutritional self-sufficiency lies in their inability to define the actual extent and nature of food insecurity. The last national nutritional survey was conducted five years ago. The National Nutritional Survey 2018 revealed shocking but long-existing realities. For example, a key finding was that childhood malnutrition rates have shown little improvement over the past five decades. Other findings were of equal concern: nearly 40 per cent of Pakistan’s children were stunted, 29pc underweight while 18pc suffered from wasting. Even in areas near the federal capital, the rate of stunting was found to be as high as 33pc (the lowest in the country!) while the highest at 47pc-48pc was found in Balochistan, GB and KP’s newly merged districts.

Though the report’s findings will stay relevant for years to come, a lot has happened in the past half a decade alone to bring significant regional-level changes to the nutritional trajectory proposed by the document. For example, the 2022 floods destroyed over four million acres of standing crops causing revenue losses of over $30 billion. However, estimates for FY22 already showed a decline in wheat production, 26.4m tonnes against a target of 28.4m tonnes, leading to the import of the staple from war-torn Ukraine. In contrast, 2021 had arguably seen the highest domestic yield of wheat (27.5m tonnes).

Nutritional insufficiency can have a generational impact.

Nutritional damage resulting from natural disasters lasts not for months but years, even decades. Data collected by the Livelihood Recovery Appraisal-2013 to investigate the impact on livelihood and food insecurity in Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab after the 2012 floods indicated that even after a whole year only 15pc of the affected population consumed nutritionally adequate food — meat, lentils and fruit along with the staple wheat. According to LRA-2013, food insecurity in Balochistan was the highest at 47pc, followed by Sindh at 41pc.

Meanwhile, global events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine-Russia war have also left their mark on the economics of global food insecurity. Their effects have been severely compounded in Pakistan because of the worsening political instability that is also responsible for the current economic crisis.

At present, short-term inflation hovers around 47pc, while overall inflation in 2022 was nearly 20pc, the highest in decades. This has a direct impact on food consumption of not just the poor but also the salaried and middle classes. Rising inflation, reduced purchasing power and a growing population with limited earners have lowered the consumption of other healthy food items, and increased dependence on wheat. The Pakistan Agriculture Council has revealed that up to 60pc of Pakistan’s daily dietary needs depend on wheat with a per capita consumption of 125 kg annually. Because of its high consumption new wheat crops are biofortified with iron and zinc to overcome micronutrient deficiencies common in women of reproductive age and children under five in Pakistan. But biofortified wheat flour was already scarce in many cities even before the wheat crisis.

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute’s 2022 report, global inflation is already harming some 1.27m children in 44 low- and middle-income countries, putting them at greater risk of wasting and stunting. Volatility in real prices increases the risk of wasting by 9pc on average. Moreover, food inflation during pregnancy and infancy plays a significant role in raising the likelihood of stunting between the ages of two and five years. These findings underscore the urgent need for early intervention to mitigate the impact of food price volatility on mother and child.

The USDA’s Global Agriculture Information Network Report 2023 shows that insufficient wheat production is a significant challenge in Pakistan, owing to a fast-growing population. To prevent serious food insecurity, an integrated approach with comprehensive policies are needed to manage food inflation. Conducting a new NNS is necessary to obtaining up-to-date data that helps nutritionists and policymakers assess the extent of malnutrition. Also, empowering farmers through modern technologies is vital. Prioritising the equitable distribution of imported wheat among provinces and implementing social protection programmes can ensure subsidised access to wheat by all.

The writer is editor of Scientific Investigation and Global Network of Scientists (SIGNS).

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2023




Timeline: Cyclones over the years with Pakistan in their path
As Cyclone Biparjoy draws closer to the coastline, we trace all the cyclones that have impacted the country.

Dawn.com Published June 13, 2023

Pakistan has a coastline of 1,046 kilometres along the Arabian Sea, which is typically prone to cyclones just before and after the monsoon season, lasting from July to September.

Currently, Cyclone Biparjoy has the country on high alert as it creeps closer to the coastline. In its latest update, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)’s Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre has said that the cyclone had moved further north-northwestward during the last 12 hours and had weakened into a “very severe cyclonic storm”.

The PMD alert also stated that the cyclone now lay at a distance of about 470km south of Karachi and 460km south of Thatta.

Here, Dawn.com traces back all the cyclones that have hit or narrowly missed the country since Independence.
1964: Cyclone 02A

A windstorm Cyclone 02A on June 12, 1964, caused significant damage in Hyderabad and Tharparkar districts as it moved towards the southeastern parts of Sindh, killing 450 people. It also impacted the lives of 400,000 and caused damage worth $4,100,000.
1965: Cyclone 013A

On December 15, Karachi was hit by a windstorm Cyclone 013A that killed around 10,000 people. It was considered an unusual and rare occurrence as cyclones in the month of December are very uncommon in the Arabian Sea.
1993 Cyclone


This map shows the tracks of all tropical cyclones in the 1993 North Indian Ocean cyclone season — Wikimedia Commons

On November 14, 1993, a category-1 windstorm cyclone hit lower Sindh, killing 609 people and displacing around 200,000 others in Keti Bandar, Thatta, Badin and Karachi. The cyclone weakened near the Sindh-Gujarat coastlines because of high wind shear.
1999: Cyclone 2A

From May 20 to 22, 1999, the cities of Thatta, Umer Kot, Mirpur, Badin, Hyderabad, and Tharparker were hit by Cyclone 2A.

This has been the most destructive cyclone in recent years to hit Pakistan as a strong Category 3 equivalent storm, killing 6,200 people in the country. At the time, no attempts were made to evacuate residents before the cyclone made landfall. It also rendered 9,252 homeless and affected 657,000 people.

The cyclone destroyed around 70 per cent of the rice and wheat crops in the area, according to then-deputy commissioner Naik Mohammed Jukhio. Around 300 soldiers were also deployed to the area (some 42 miles east of Karachi), to locate and rescue the missing persons and assess the damage. The deputy commissioner reported that as many as 3,500 people were missing.

2007: Cyclone Yemyin

Cyclone Yemyin 03B made its landfall along the Makran coast near Ormara and Pasni in Balochistan. Although the cyclone avoided Karachi, the city received 33mm of rainfall, accompanied by strong winds — two days after a violent duststorm killed over 200 people and left the city in chaos.

On June 25, the Joint Typhoon Warning Centre (JTWC) issued a second tropical cyclone formation alert in the region. While the cyclone moved northwest, towards the Pakistani coast, winds of about 48 Km/h and a surface pressure of 990 millibars were observed in Karachi.

According to Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), the centre of the system reached within 90km of Karachi.

It ultimately made landfall along the Makran Coast, killing 730 people and affecting the lives of two million others, making it the third deadliest cyclone in the history of the country.

2007: Cyclone Gonu

Cyclone Gonu hitting the coast of Oman. — Reuters

In June 2007, tropical Cyclone Gonu — the most intense Arabian Sea storm on record — made landfall first in Oman, before moving onto southern Iran.

Cyclone Gonu, which was the first Category 5 (the most destructive storm with maximum wind speed) equivalent storm, claimed 100 lives in Oman, Iran and the United Arab Emirates and was responsible for $4 billion in damage. It also affected areas of Western India and Pakistan.

2010: Cyclone Phet

Cyclone Phet killed six people in Oman, before recurving towards Pakistan’s coast. — AFP

The super tropical Cyclone Phet (a Thai word that means diamond) emerged in a low-pressure area in the central Arabian Sea and intensified into a tropical cyclone on June 1, 2010. Initially, it was located at a distance of 1,100 km south-southwest of Karachi but then it moved towards the coast at a speed of 6 knots.

The Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) issued warnings to fishermen in Sindh and Balochistan on May 31 to not go into the open sea for the next six to eight days.

On June 3, the Phet cyclone hit the northeastern Oman coast and was downgraded to a severe tropical cyclone. The next day, it recurved towards the Pakistani coast and made landfall along the Sindh coast, between Karachi and Keti Bandar on June 6, killing around 15 people. The Sindh-Makran coastal areas received heavy torrential rain.

2014: Cyclone Nilofer

Satellite photo shows Tropical Cyclone Nilofar in the Arabian Sea. — NASA

A deep depression over the Arabian Sea turned into a tropical cyclone called Nilofer in late October 2014. It was predicted to bring heavy rain along the coastline of Pakistan.

Cyclone ‘Nilofar’ was named by Pakistan as it was the country’s turn* in alphabetical order.

The dreaded tropical Cyclone Nilo­far nearly completed its cycle without hitting the coastlines of Pakistan and India. It turned into ‘low pressure’ in the Arabian Sea which caused light rain in Karachi and some parts of lower Sindh.

2019: Cyclone Kyarr

A child throws water out of her house in the Ibrahim Hyderi area after seawater accumulated in the wake of Cyclone Kyarr, which developed in the Arabian Sea. (Right) Fishermen sit in their boats that were pulled ashore because of the cyclonic activity. —PPI/AP

Coastal areas of Gwadar, Pasni, Ormara and Makran were affected by Cyclone Kyarr. Abdullah Dakarzai village in the Gadani area of the Lasbela district was cut off from other areas after seawater submerged it.

Several villages along the Sindh coast were partially affected by the tidal waves rising under the influence of Kyarr and areas along the Sindh-Makran coast received rain. Cyclone Kyarr was unusual as it developed in the post-monsoon period (October-November).

Historically, cyclones of this intensity have been reported in the monsoon period.

2021: Cylone Teuktae


A dust storm hit Karachi under the influence of Cyclone Tauktae. — Online

Even though Cyclone Teuktae mainly impacted India in May of 2021, several areas in lower Sindh also received heavy winds, killing at least four and injuring many others in multiple incidents. The damages included the collapse of concrete structures, following a dust storm and drizzle in Karachi.

2021: Cyclone Shaheen

(CLOCKWISE) Motorists passing through a road flooded with rainwater; families enjoy rain at Clifton beach after Cyclone Shaheen moved away from Sindh’s coast; Administrator Murtaza Wahab addresses a press conference at Frere Hall in Karachi on Friday.— Online / PPI

The fearsome Cyclone Shaheen moved away from Sindh’s coast and curved towards Oman, losing impact near Balochistan’s coast in October 2021. Despite that, it did induce high winds, light to moderate rainfall, at times isolated heavy falls, in Karachi.

Several areas were submerged under water and a young man died of electrocution in Orangi Town.

2023: Cyclone Biparjoy

Chief meteorologist says intensity of winds around the system’s centre is increasing very fast due to favourable environmental conditions.—PMD

According to the latest alerts, Cyclone Biparjoy is expected to make landfall between Keti Bunder in Sindh and the Indian Gujarat coast on June 15.

A man walks away from the seafront as high tidal waves hit the coast in Mumbai on June 13 as Cyclone Biparjoy makes its way across the Arabian Sea towards the coastlines of India and Pakistan. — AFP

Evacuations are under way in Sindh. According to Sindh Information Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, 26,855 people have been evacuated across the province, of whom 19,205 were evacuated were conducted by the government, while the remaining had voluntarily moved to safer locations.

*The name of a new tropical cyclone is determined by sequential cycling through lists of names submitted by countries that are members of five tropical cyclone regional bodies. The process of naming cyclones began in 2000, according to the WMO.

Pakistan is included in the list of Northern Indian Ocean Names. Other member countries are Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Sri Lanka and Thailand.



As Karachi suffers from merciless heat, some suffer more than others

The adverse effects are not only witnessed in the form of heatwaves on land but also wreak havoc in the oceans — Cyclone Biparjoy is the latest example.

Wara Irfan Published June 13, 2023

“Garmi bohot hai” — if you’ve lived in Karachi, you’ve probably said and heard this phrase one too many times. Rising mercury levels impact our lives everyday. Like many other issues, however, heat does not affect us all the same way, with those on the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder bearing the brunt of the impact.

“There is neither water nor electricity at our house, where does one go?” asked Dilshad, a domestic help working in Karachi. “We are the labour class, we have to go out. It’s so hot, there are no trees or even a place where one can sit [outside].”

Dilshad takes a Qingqi rickshaw daily to reach her places of work and “it’s so cramped inside”, making it even more difficult to cope with the heat.

In 2015, Karachi experienced a severe heatwave that resulted in over 1,200 deaths, leaving another 50,000 sick. In 2018, a heatwave killed 65 people in just three days in the city. Last year, Pakistan, along with India, faced a deadly heatwave that broke records with Pakistan experiencing the world’s highest March temperature.


Home addresses of people who died during the 2015 heatwave in Karachi (white dots), and ratings of Union Councils according to six categories of vulnerability (1 = low vulnerability in yellow, 6 = high vulnerability in red) — Courtesy: Commissioner Karachi



A 2022 report on health and climate change by the Lancet Countdown — a collaboration of 120 experts from different fields, stated that extreme heat was related to “acute kidney injury, heatstroke, adverse pregnancy outcomes, worsened sleep patterns, impacts on mental health, worsening of underlying cardiovascular and respiratory disease and increases in non-accidental and injury-related deaths”.


A volunteer showers a woman with water during a heatwave in Karachi. — AFP

Of heatwaves and cyclones


What makes this heat even more dangerous is the “wet-bulb” phenomenon. The wet-bulb temperature (WBT) is simply the combination of dry air temperature with humidity, measuring heat-stress conditions on the human body.

“It’s different in different places, but according to the general definition provided by the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation), a [heat wave] is considered when the temperature rises higher than the area’s average temperature by 5°C and continues to stay that way for five consecutive days. That’s when we can declare it a heat wave,” said Sardar Sarfraz, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD).

“For example, in June [the average temperature] is 36°C. If it rises to 40-41°C and stays like that for five days in a row, we can say it is a heat wave condition. “

“If you look at the temperature trend for the last few years, we can see extreme temperatures in different instances,” he said, adding that last year, Pakistan witnessed at least six to eight episodes of extraordinary heatwaves. It began in March and then continued till June, so for around three months, the wave stayed in almost all flat areas of Pakistan.

During this time, however, Karachi and other areas on the coastline fared much better compared to rural Punjab, Balochistan and KP’s maidaani [plain] areas.

“Every year is becoming progressively hotter than the previous one, as global warming is increasing. […] Especially in the last 25 to 30 years, it’s consistently a rising trend,” he said.

Globally, temperatures have risen by almost 1.1°C on average, compared to the pre-industrial revolution mercury levels pre-industrial revolution. In some places, this increase has been recorded up to 1.2°C, which is quite significant according to most scientists.

“In the Paris Agreement, all countries agreed that we cannot let this rise over 1.5°C, setting it as a threshold. It will be immensely damaging to all sectors if it crosses that. But the speed with which the temperature is rising, the concern is that in the next five to 10 years, the threshold might be crossed.”

The solution is moving towards alternative energies such as solar, tidal and wind, etc, he said. “Every year, the world sits together at the COP (UN climate change conference) and says ‘we must curtail’ this but then don’t do it,” he lamented. “This is exactly what they should do.”

The adverse effects are not only witnessed in the form of heatwaves on land but can also wreak havoc in the oceans. According to Sarfraz, because of the rising heat, the cyclones emerging in the ocean are of more intensity now. “In the last 20 years, the frequency of cyclones has almost remained constant but their intensity is rising — intensity in terms of torrential rains and high-intensity rain. These pose great dangers to the coastal areas in Pakistan.”

“Sea levels are also rising due to the heat which is a threat to the coastal areas. All the low-lying areas can be under water in the next 10 to 20 years.”


This GIF shows the tracked and projected path of Cyclone BIparjoy, which is expected to hit the Indian and Pakistani coastlines on June 14. — Courtesy: Zoom.Earth

Heat threshold for humans

Normally, the human body sweats to cool down, but above a certain wet-bulb temperature, the body can no longer do that. This is the WBT threshold that identifies the limit of human adaptability to extreme heat. Once the body surpasses this limit, its organs begin to fail.


How the human body regulates its core temperature.
 — CNX OpenStax, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Earlier it was believed that this threshold value was 35°C (from a 2010 study), but a recent study, found that the real threshold is much lower. “Our data is actual human subject data and shows that the critical wet-bulb temperature is closer to 31.5°C ,” the authors concluded.

The number of times this threshold has been crossed — albeit only for a few hours — has also been increasing globally. “The times these events last will increase and the areas they affect will grow in direct correlation with global warming,” climate scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Colin Raymond, told The Guardian. There were about 1,000 occurrences of a 31°C WBT, and about a dozen above 35°C, in Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Australia, according to his research.

Due to the exponential rise in temperatures, “vulnerable populations (adults older than 65 years, and children younger than one year of age) were exposed to … more heatwave days in 2021 than annually in 1986–2005, and heat-related deaths increased by 68 per cent between 2000–04 and 2017–21”, according to the report.


Men rest in the shade of trees during a hot summer day in Karachi. — AFP

Not only does it cause a number of ailments, heat also impacts people’s ability to work and exercise. The role of the state and the institutions is also crucial in determining how any group is actually affected by extreme temperatures.

Among people over the age of 65, for instance, rising temperatures and heat waves are “projected to result in 38,000 additional deaths per year by 2030 and 100,000 by 2050”, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights.

Men rest in the shade of trees during a heatwave in Karachi. — AFP

Gender is also another aspect that has a major impact on the process of heat mitigation. According to the Lancet Countdown report, “socially deprived” people are at the forefront.

In Pakistan, the climate crisis has “compounded vulnerabilities” for women, said the UNDP and the National Commission for the Status of Women (NCSW). For example, when people migrate due to heat or other climate-related crises, it is often the men who move out, leaving women to take care of their families and the household in extreme weather conditions. Research from Europe has also shown that women are more likely to die in extreme heat events.

Women also lack access to public cooling spaces and are often confined to indoor spaces, making them more vulnerable to heat during heatwaves and power cuts.

“When we work [in the heat], we get sick. There are no [work] leaves given to us,” said Dilshad. “If we miss work, we don’t get paid or get fired. If we don’t work, how will we eat?”

She also pointed out that she has to buy water to drink. “How can me and my children take frequent baths?” she asked rhetorically. “Bijli teen teen ghante hoti nahi hai. Ek ghanta dete hain, dou ghanta kaat te hain [Power goes out for hours. It’s there for an hour, then gone again for the next two],” she added.
Occupational hazards

People who work outside are at the highest risk. Farmers, construction workers, miners, and factory workers are prone to “heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat cramps, or heat rashes. Heat can also increase the risk of injuries in workers as it may result in sweaty palms, fogged-up safety glasses, and dizziness”, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“It [heat] hurts us, takleef deta hai [gives us pain]. There is no water to drink or cool us down. Here, there is a water problem,” said Muhammad Ashraf, who hails from Quetta and sells toys at a flea market in Karachi. “People who used to come here, don’t anymore. There were trees here, now there are no trees so people tend to come less. It hurts my business.”

“In Karachi, if there is no hawa, then there is a lot of garmi. Jab hawa chalti hai tou guzara hojata hai [If there is wind, the heat is manageable].”

“It is very hot but majboori hai kya karen,” said Faisal Abbas, a daily-wage labourer working on a construction site at University Road. When I asked him how the heat is impacting his work, he said that he has to work regardless of how hot it gets.

A truck driver takes a nap under stacked tables in the scorching heat. 
— Courtesy: Shakil Adil/ Amnesty International

“It is very difficult. After every five to ten minutes, we go in the shade. We drink water, what else can we do?”

The government often advises people to take regular baths and pour water on their bodies to keep cool. He laughed and said, “Idhar peene ka nahi milta, nahane ka kahan se lain? [We don’t get water to drink, where do we bring it to take a bath?]”

Ashraf, the flea market vendor, agreed with Abbas. “Thele walon ko peene ka paani nahi milta yahan, kahan se layen paani? [Flea market vendors don’t get water to drink here. Where do we get water from?].”

According to Abbas, his body is now used to working under the scorching sun and he rarely falls ill because of it. “Aadhi hogaye hain [We are used to it],” he said with a wry smile.

Originally from Mianwali, he moved to Karachi to make a living. Compared to his home city, he found the heat in Karachi bearable. Not everyone is used to it, though.

“It is really hot in Karachi. We are suffering in these conditions. There is no shade, there is nothing,” Mohammad Wajid, a mechanic working opposite Abbas’ construction site, told me.


Loss of open green spaces in Karachi 2005-2017
. — Data source: World Bank online repository. Processed and prepared by Karachi Urban Lab, 2021.

The heat is not only adversely impacting his body but also his work. “Kaam hai hi nai, aap ke samne hai [There is no work, it’s in front of you],” he said, waving towards his empty mechanic shop located on one of the busiest thoroughfares of Karachi.

“In winter, our work returns to normal. In summer, no one leaves their house,” he added.

Saddan, a rikshaw driver, also had a similar experience to share. “Since it’s so hot, people tend to go out less. They come out to work during the evenings and nights and during the day, they stay home.” Saddan also fell ill due to the heat some time ago. Even if it hurts his wages, he now prefers to drive during cool hours and avoids the hottest parts of the day.

A man carries a heatstroke victim to a hospital in Karachi. 
— AFP / Rizwan Tabassum

“We do not have the facilities to mitigate the heat. If someone comes and parks their car under the sun, we have to stay there and work under the sun.” He also complained that his house has electricity for two to three hours only. “Baaki time bus khair khairyat hai [The rest of the time, we just make do].”

Ashraf too said that his house gets only six to ten hours of electricity. “After every one to two hours, there is load shedding,” he said. He also said that his body gets red and he feels sick in the heat.

Access to electricity — or the lack of it — intensifies the impact of heat on the human body. Not only do power cuts shut down fans and other cooling infrastructure run on electricity, they also indirectly cause diseases; for example, without a working fridge, food quickly goes bad and with the skyrocketing inflation, the majority of the population has no choice but to eat it. This results in a great number of gastric illnesses such as food poisoning.

Cool infrastructures

“Karachi, being a metropolis city, has failed to build a decent transport infrastructure to facilitate the movement. People spend hours during their commute in 40-degree temperatures, the majority of whom use personal bikes and public transport which exposes them to extreme heat,” said Atoofa Samo, a research associate at the Karachi Urban Lab, working on cooling infrastructures in the city.

“You would not find sufficient shade at bus stops where people can wait comfortably and wait for the transport to arrive,” she said, citing an example of the lack of planning.

During her research on heat, Samo learned that one of her respondents “has to walk for 15 minutes to reach the bus stop and there is no shade” on the way. These “day-to-day experiences of commute acerbate [people’s] vulnerability to heat.”

“She felt drained and dehydrated due to the excessive precipitation before reaching the workstation,” said Samo.

But all is not lost.

Over the last few years, since the scathing heat waves of 2015, Dr Sunita Lata Lohano, Additional MS (AMS) at the Dr Ruth Pfau Civil Hospital Karachi, noted that she has observed a marked decline in the number of heat-related cases.

She said that the mortality rate during the heat emergency in 2016, when she was working in the ER, was very high. “Now there are awareness programmes, availability of beds, availability of medicines and contingency plans are made too. This has brought many changes and significantly lowered the mortality rate.”

In 2022, the total number of people admitted for heat-related ailments at the government hospital was 35, of whom one person passed away. This year, 12 people have been admitted so far and all of them have recovered successfully.

“Elderly, children, poor and homeless are the most affected [by heat-related illnesses]. For children, it’s less than 14 years of age, and for the elderly, it’s more than 60 years of age.”

A heat stroke patient is rushed to the emergency ward at a hospital in Karachi. 
— PPI/File


Preventive measures

According to Dr Lohano, the impact of heat can be divided into direct and indirect categories. The former includes heat-related illnesses such as dehydration, cramps, strokes, etc, while the latter pertains to the effects on health facilities, such as an increase in the number of ambulances required, the need for medicines, the burden on emergency services at hospitals and so on.

“For this, we at the hospital, make a contingency plan to prepare us,” she said. Another impact on health services is an “increased risk of accidents” because excessive heat makes driving difficult, said Dr Lohano.

“People should be made aware of the ways to regulate body temperature. In the morning and afternoon, try to keep your surroundings at less than 32°C, and during night hours, keep it below 34°C,” she suggested. “People who take medication must ensure that the medicines are stored below 25°C.”

According to Dr Lohano, “the common signs and symptoms of a heat stroke are a higher body temperature, loss of consciousness, pulse rate initially decreasing and then increasing, feeling nauseous and dizzy, intense thirst, headache and most importantly, muscle strain and fatigue.”

At what point must you immediately go to the hospital though? “When you’re hot and red, your skin is dry, and the temperature is 40°Cor 104°F,” said the doctor. If someone around you is experiencing these symptoms, you must immediately bring them to the nearest hospital, she recommended.

The Civil Hospital now has a separate section for heat-related cases. More than 15 beds are available for heat stroke patients in case of an emergency, Dr Lohano told Dawn.com. Besides the beds, medicines, ORS and other resources are also available at the hospital.

“Drink lots of water, try to take breaks if you’re working outside, and stay under shady areas for some time … avoid going outside during the hottest time of the day,” the doctor advised. “Also, reduce the intake of alcohol,” she stressed, “in addition to sugar and caffeine.”

People spray each other with water as temperatures rise in Karachi. 
— AFP/File

Simple as they may sound, many of these simple interventions are near impossible for many residents of Karachi.

There are a “variety of micro-climates” present in Karachi across its districts and “each one has unique physical features and built environment that contributes to thermal experiences in the city”, according to Samo.

Fifty percent of Karachi’s population lives in informal settlements. Most of them are settled along Karachi’s major stormwater drainage channels — the Gujjar Orangi Nullah, and Lyari (Ilyas Goth).

These informal settlements are characterised by dense populations, cramped streets, and limited access to public utilities and services. Houses are built with metal sheets (roof) and bamboo, without adequate access to basic services such as water and electricity,“ she said.

People beating the heat in the Hub canal which carries drinking water to Karachi from the Hub dam. — Online

“Communities living in these settlements are introduced to compounded vulnerabilities, heat risk, and urban flooding. Extreme heat impacts are pronounced in these populations due to a lack of awareness of acute/chronic heat (waves) occurrence and risk, inadequate access to routine energy services access to potable water, and lack of access to cooling centres.”

In essence, heat disproportionally impacts the poor, especially those not seen as ‘formal’ by the state.

“There is substantive literature that suggests heat waves and urban heat island effects reinforce each other’s effects. These heat islands are concentrations of buildings, paved areas, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat. For instance, high-density, high-rise buildings interfere with the asphalt used for the roads and produce heat.

Meanwhile, lower-income neighbourhoods are highly dense settlements, leaving no room for natural ventilation with limited access to energy services, electricity and water. Hence, the lack of public parks, lack of access to cooling spaces, and limited green vegetation also intensify the heat crises,“ she explained.

Can better urban planning mitigate the effects of heat though? “Urban planning solely would not be able to lessen the heat crises; heat is also a governance issue in the case of Karachi,” said Samo.

“As we witness during the 2015 heat wave, an unexpected number of causalities happened, and the government was impotent in playing the role of first responders. It was local NGOs and welfare foundations such as Edhi who actively contributed to managing the heat crises.”

“Moreover, at the national level, heat is understood as a one-time event, rather than as something recurring that has long-term effects such as slow deaths,” she added.

The role of the government is important to consider here given how the national policy for climate crises in Pakistan mentions the term heat only nine times. There are no extensive measures that particularly focus on heat.

“Heat should be declared as a disaster, not only because of its devastating effects, but also to allocate a budget (and resources) to practically tackle the issue. For instance, developing a heat (wave) alert system that could reach a wider audience, creating cooling spaces, and installing portable water camps across the city during extreme summers.”


The author is a KAS-Dawn.com media fellow, interested in the intersection of gender, visual cultures and lived experiences.

‘There is nothing for me’: Vietnam drought dries up income

By AFP
June 16, 2023


An unprecedented drought has left cracked earth where water once teemed with fish - Copyright AFP Nhac NGUYEN

On the shores of a reservoir that feeds one of Vietnam’s biggest hydropower plants, Dang Thi Phuong points at the cracked ground where the fish that help her earn a living normally swim.

After a series of heatwaves, including a record high in May, and an unprecedented drought, rivers and reservoirs in northern Vietnam are running dry, pulling locals who survive off the water into serious economic difficulty.

Scientists say global warming is exacerbating adverse weather, and Vietnam is just one of many countries across South and Southeast Asia to have suffered a prolonged heatwave in recent weeks.

At Thac Ba hydropower plant in Yen Bai province, 160 kilometres (100 miles) north of Hanoi, water in the reservoir is at its lowest level in 20 years, according to state media.

At its worst, the water was about 15 to 20 centimetres (6 to 8 inches) below the minimum level needed for the plant to function.

The nearby Chay river is little more than a puddle, with rocks and soil clearly visible.

“Normally, I can earn up to three million dong ($125) per month from fishing on the lake, but now there is nothing for me,” Phuong, 42, said, adding that even her buffaloes were suffering, no longer able to take a proper bath in the shallow waters.

She worries, too, about water for her rice fields and for her family.

“We use water from a nearby well for our paddy field. This year, it has dried up.

“So if things will continue like this, I’m afraid we won’t have water to use for our daily life,” she told AFP.

The drought has severely strained power supplies in northern Vietnam, causing rolling blackouts and sudden power cuts.

The crisis is hitting the country’s crucial manufacturing sector, with operations at a large number of factories badly impacted, according to business leaders.

On the ground, 60-year-old fisherman Hoang Van Tien said even if there were fish, it was too hot to sit out on the water.

“This kind of drought I have seen in the past, but it wasn’t as hot as this time.

“Now it is too hot to go to the lake (for fishing). It is too sunny. I sit on the boat with a hood to cover me, but the heat rises up from the water and burns my skin.”
Hungarian govt, media train sights on Soros son


By AFP
June 16, 2023

The Hungarian government and its allied media are taking aim at Alexander Soros.
 — © AFP

Ede ZABORSZKY

After years of demonising billionaire investor George Soros as a sinister liberal bogeyman, the Hungarian government and its allied media are taking aim at a fresh target — his son Alexander.

Monday’s announcement that the elder Soros will hand over control of his philanthropic empire to 37-year-old Alexander, who goes by the name of Alex, prompted an object lesson in the workings of media loyal to nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

The 92-year-old Soros has become a bete noire of the international far right because of the activities of his Open Society Foundations (OSF).

In Hungary, the government accuses him of wanting to “flood Europe” with migrants because of the OSF’s support for refugee rights advocates.

Critics of the Hungarian government say it has used anti-Semitic tropes in its virulent attacks on Soros, who is Jewish, depicting him as a shadowy and manipulative figure. The government denies these claims.

“The government has made George Soros a kind of axiomatic enemy” blamed for everything from high inflation to Hungary’s isolation in foreign policy, according to Peter Kreko, executive director of the Political Capital think tank, which lists the OSF among its donors and partners.

Orban was one of the first to comment on Monday’s news, tweeting a scene from one of the “Godfather” films showing the crime lord protagonist kissing his son, with the caption: “Soros 2.0”.

In his weekly interview with state radio on Friday, Orban went as far as to blame Alex Soros for the deal reached by European Union interior ministers earlier this month on refugee resettlement within the bloc.

– ‘Soros-boy’s propaganda’ –

The EU deal was reached because “Soros handed over the leadership of his empire to his son, who dictates an even tougher pace than he does”, Orban said, claiming that both George and Alex Soros “are preparing to incite the migrants”.


George Soros has become a bete noire of the international far right
 – Copyright AFP/File Yuichi YAMAZAKI

The wider reaction showed the range and methods of the pro-government media ecosystem in a landscape where independent outlets have been marginalised.

For example Hirado, a programme on the main public broadcaster, quoted coverage from the pro-government private sector Origo website.

Anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has become a prominent part of official narratives in recent years and Origo used pictures of Alex with a man it called his “life partner” to make insinuations about his sexuality, adding: “This is apparently part of the Soros boy’s LGBTQ propaganda.”

“The pictures show them demonstrating their physical and emotional togetherness in sometimes provocative ways. They often hug and hold hands,” Origo claimed.

The latest allegations echo a previous instance of disinformation in 2018 in which pro-government outlets claimed Alex Soros was spotted at Budapest Pride, while using photos of a different person.

Contrary to these claims, he is not known for commenting on his private life. AFP approached the Open Society Foundations for comment but had not received a reply at the time of writing.

– ‘Rhetorical house of cards’ –

Think tanks friendly to Orban’s ruling Fidesz party are also frequently on hand to amplify its talking points.

In comments to a pro-government website, Tamas Fritz from the Alapjogokert Kozpont institute repeated the insinuations about the younger Soros’s private life and warned he would be “more radical” than his father on “the question of a world government, mandatory vaccination, or abortion”.

Away from the traditional outlets on which many Hungarians rely for their news, the “Megafon” collective of pro-government writers and influencers are active on social media.

The group’s funding is unclear but, along with affiliated sites, Megafon spends millions of euros on political advertisements on platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.

Megafon member Daniel Deak alleged the younger Soros wanted to “break our homeland”, warning of the OSF’s “rejuvenated strength”.

However, Kreko pointed out that the coverage in pro-government media didn’t mention “that Alexander Soros has also met regularly with right-wing politicians” such as former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz or Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Nor is the messaging likely to change in the near future.

“The rhetorical house of cards built by the government is built on George Soros. Without him it would collapse. So it was to be expected that the rhetoric would remain even if Alex Soros came to the fore,” Kreko said.



‘Francocide’: new French far-right term enters language battle

By AFP
June 16, 2023

Far-right idealogue Eric Zemmour has readily used the term "francocide"
 - Copyright AFP STR

Adam PLOWRIGHT

When an Algerian woman with mental health problems killed a 12-year-old child in Paris last year, far-right idealogue Eric Zemmour wasted no time in labelling the crime a “francocide”.

After a Syrian refugee stabbed four children and two adults at a lake-side park in the Alps last week, he repeated the term — which he coined himself in a speech last September that referred to the “violent colonisation” of France by foreigners.

Other supposed victims of “francocide” — all white French people — include a secondary school teacher whose beheading by a radicalised Chechen refugee shook France in 2020.

Having contributed to making the “great replacement theory” mainstream in France, the 64-year-old best-selling author has introduced a new racially charged term to the political lexicon.

It prompted the head of the UN High Commission for Refugees to condemn it on Wednesday for demonising migrants or refugees as French-hating murderers.

“I have read the word ‘Francocide’, so killers of French. This is hate speech and I hope nobody will use it,” Filippo Grandi told reporters in Geneva.

The remark sparked fresh media attention in France and may have helped inadvertently to spread the word further — just as Zemmour hopes.

An analysis of public Facebook posts shows references to the neologism have been liked or shared 266,000 times since September while the #francocide hashtag was retweeted 60,000 times on a single day in October after the killing of 12-year-old Lola.

Analysts say past decades have demonstrated how once marginal far-right words and themes have slowly entered the mainstream in France where politics has turned rightwards amid concern about migration.

– Echoes –


Philippe Corcuff, a left-leaning political scientist at Sciences Po university in Lyon, cites the example of the “great replacement theory”, which posits that white Christian French people are being deliberately replaced by mostly Muslim immigrants from Africa and the Middle East.

Once a fringe idea in radical far-right circles, Zemmour put it at the heart of his campaign for the presidency last year which saw him win 2.5 million votes or seven percent of the electorate in the first round.

The conspiracy theory ended up being endorsed by the now-head of the mainstream centre-right Republicans party, Eric Ciotti, and referenced by the party’s candidate, Valerie Pecresse.

“The term ‘francocide’ is directly linked to the theory of the ‘great replacement’, that the French population is being replaced by another of African origin, often Muslim,” Corcuff said.

It deliberately echoes the word “genocide” to evoke “the possible disappearance of the French people,” he said, as well as mimicking the word “femicide” to denote murders of women or “ecocide” to describe crimes against the environment.

“In the same way that ‘femicide’ has contributed to politicising violence against women, Zemmour is aiming to politicise everyday crimes involving immigrants,” wrote commentator Pascal Riche in the leftwing L’Obs magazine.

Zemmour’s far-right rival, the figurehead of the National Rally (RN) party Marine Le Pen and her party colleagues have however steered clear of using the term.

– Macron’s mimicry? –


President Emmanuel Macron and some of his ministers have also been accused by opponents of borrowing words commonly associated with the anti-immigration far-right, which has been dominated by Jean-Marie Le Pen and then his daughter Marine since the 1970s.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin spoke in 2020 about France “turning savage” (“ensauvagement” in French), while Macron was accused of borrowing from the far-right lexicon at a cabinet meeting in May when he said there was a “process of de-civilisation” underway in the country.

“De-civilisation means barbarism. Emmanuel Macron has once again .. approved of our assessment of things,” Marine Le Pen told the Cnews channel in response.

Corcuff says the term is racially loaded and implies “a sense of barbarism threatening France that comes from Islam and Africa”.

Zemmour, a best-selling author and amateur historian, is well aware of the importance of words in politics, as he stated during his speech introducing the concept of “francocide”.

“Lenin got it right when he used to say: make them use the word and they will swallow the idea,” Zemmour said.
Haiti at risk of ‘civil war’ without international force: minister

By AFP
June 16, 2023

Police officers patrol a neighborhood amid gang-related violence in downtown Port-au-Prince in April 2023 Between April 14 and 19, clashes between rival gangs left nearly 70 people dead, including 18 women and at least two children, according to a United Nations statement released April 24.
 Copyright AFP STR

Haiti risks descending into civil war if an international assistance force is not sent to the violence-plagued nation imminently, a minister for the Caribbean country warned Friday.

Ricard Pierre, Haiti’s minister of planning and external cooperation, made the plea during a special meeting on the urgent food needs of Haiti at the UN headquarters in New York.

“The government has called for international assistance with a clear robust mandate to support the Haitian National Police,” he said.

“If this request is not met in a short period of time, the risk of civil war is very real,” Pierre added.

Rival gangs have taken control of most of the capital Port-au-Prince as Haiti has been gripped by a political and economic crisis since the assassination in July 2021 of president Jovenel Moise.

Some residents have even taken matters into their own hands, stoning and burning alive suspected gang members as violence between the gangs ravages Port-au-Prince.

Haiti’s prime minister and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres have called for months for a new mission to stabilize the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation.

No nation has yet to offer to lead the force, but several nations — including Canada, France and the United States — have said they support such a plan.

Canada on Thursday announced the launch of a new center to coordinate international security assistance to Haiti, but stopped short of agreeing to lead an intervention.

The Canadian-led Joint Security Coordination Cell will look to “enhance the coordination and mobilization of international efforts in security assistance” to Haiti, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement.

Friday’s UN meeting aimed to rally support and funds for Haiti, where nearly half of the population of 11 million do not have enough to eat.

“We underscore that human security and food security are mutually reinforcing and must be tackled in tandem,” Ralph Gonsalves, the Prime Minister of the southern Caribbean nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, said in a video address.

In April, the UN launched a humanitarian response plan that called for $719 million for Haiti, almost double from 2022. The plan is currently only 20 percent funded, according to the UN.

“The situation is dire and it’s getting worse every day,” World Food Program executive director Cindy McCain said in a pre-recorded message.

“We must act now and work together to get food to millions of people who are relying on us,” she pleaded.

The UN says that recent floods and an earthquake have shown that Haiti’s humanitarian needs will grow as the hurricane season starts.

The head of the UN children’s fund said nearly a quarter of children in Haiti are “chronically malnourished,” which is coinciding with a devastating cholera outbreak.

“Haiti is on the precipice of catastrophe,” warned UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell.

France to push shipping carbon tax at finance summit

By AFP
June 16, 2023

The shipping industry transports around 90 percent of traded goods worldwide, accounting for some three percent of carbon emissions - Copyright AFP Brendan Smialowski

France said Friday it would throw its weight behind an emissions tax on the heavily polluting shipping industry, adding momentum to a campaign long championed by Pacific island nations and environmental campaigners.

French President Emmanuel Macron will push the issue at an international conference next week to discuss revamping the global development aid system where Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as well as a host of African heads of state are expected.

The shipping industry transports around 90 percent of traded goods worldwide and accounts for around three percent of global carbon emissions, which are currently unregulated.

Two Pacific nations exposed to the risk of rising sea levels, the Marshall and Solomon islands, have been pushing over the last decade for a $100-per-tonne tax on maritime industry emissions which would create incentives for operators to cut their pollution.

“We hope that we will give a real political boost” to the proposal at the summit, an aide to said on condition of anonymity on Friday.

Macron will host dozens of foreign leaders at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris from June 22-23 and a pledge from participating countries such as China, Saudi Arabia or Brazil would represent a concrete achievement from the talks.

French officials believe it would add pressure on shipping groups and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), a United Nations agency, which is set to host a summit in two weeks’ time where the carbon tax is expected to be discussed.

The Marshall and Solomon Islands proposals would add tax of around $300-400 to the price of a tonne of heavy oil used by container ships, raising approximately $60-80 billion (55-73 billion euros) of tax receipts per year, according to the World Bank.

These funds could then be used by emerging countries to help finance their transition to a low-carbon economy and adapt to climate change.

The shipping industry, which operates across multiple jurisdictions and often in international waters, is “currently completely exempt from tax either on their sales or their emissions,” the French presidential aide said.

“We need new resources” to fight climate change and poverty as the “needs are so huge”, the official said.

– ‘Slow progress’ –

The United Nations warned in November last year that carbon emissions from shipping were growing and it called on the vast industry to scrap old, polluting vessels and upgrade infrastructure to speed up its green transition.

While the world is becoming increasingly aware of the need to slash greenhouse gas emissions to avert catastrophic climate change, the global maritime fleet saw emissions rise by 4.7 percent between 2020 and 2021 alone, the UN’s trade and development agency UNCTAD.

It also raised concerns about the average age of ships sailing the seas, which currently stands at nearly 22 years, meaning they rely on older, more polluting engines.

The IMO has set a target for shipping to halve its annual emissions between 2008 and 2050, which is less ambitious than other industries targeting net-zero over the same period.

The European Commission says on its website that there has been “relatively slow progress in the IMO” to spur efficiency measures in the estimated 90,000 commercial vessels plying the world’s seas.

Some companies are investing in new technologies, however, including engines that can run on hydrogen or liquefied natural gas, or be powered by the age-old technology of sails.

The French push follows previous unsuccessful efforts by Britain to nudge the shipping industry into taking greater action. London urged the sector to adopt net-zero targets for 2050 at the time of the COP26 climate summit in 2021.

Uruguay to melt Nazi bronze eagle, recast it as peace dove


By AFP
June 16, 2023

Uruguay's Supreme Court has ruled the eagle was the property of the state - Copyright ALFREDO ETCHEGARAY/AFP/File HO

Uruguay will melt down a bronze eagle found on a sunken World War II-era German destroyer off its coast 13 years ago, and recast it as a dove of peace, the South American country’s president said Friday.

The 350-kilogram (770-pound) “symbol of violence and war” will be turned into a “symbol of peace and union,” President Luis Lacalle Pou told journalists in the capital Montevideo.

The two-meter (6.5-foot)-tall bird with a Nazi swastika gripped in its talons adorned the stern of the Admiral Graf Spee, a battleship involved in one of the first naval skirmishes of World War II.

The Graf Spee’s captain, Hans Langsdorff, scuttled the battleship — one of the Third Reich’s largest — on December 17, 1939 following the Battle of the River Plate.

The sculpture was found in 2006 after a 10-year hunt in the River Plate off Montevideo.

In 2019, a court ruled that the sculpture must be sold, with half the proceeds going to the government and half to the salvage team.

This 50-50 split had been stipulated in an agreement the salvagers had signed with the Uruguayan navy in 2004. The treasure hunters later filed suit, claiming the government reneged on that deal.

Last year, Uruguay’s Supreme Court ruled the eagle was the property of the state.

Lacalle Pou said Uruguayan artist Pablo Atchugarry has been chosen to make the peace dove, which is expected to be completed in November.