At the Edge of Apocalypse

by Robert Hunziker / June 21st, 2024

Biblical flooding, scorching heat, collapsing grid system, animals crumbling, waters rising, crops wilting, economy on the brink, and millions displaced.

Welcome to the future of climate change… Pakistan.

If one could classify a global warming beta test as a success towards an ultimate goal of apocalypse, unfortunately, it has turned Pakistan into a country populated by millions of displaced people in the early chapters of a horror story with no ending in sight because it is likely to get worse. Pakistan has been thrashed back and forth from one year (2022) of biblical flooding to years of record-setting heat. Normality has fled, chased out by an ogre of darkened apocalypse in the making.

Wherefore, Inside Climate News d/d June 8, 2024 has a remarkable series entitled “Living on Earth”, which recently interviewed Rafay Alam, who is an environmental lawyer and a member of Pakistan’s Climate Change Council. The title of the interview: “As Temperatures in Pakistan Top 120 Degrees, There’s Nowhere to Run”. That interview is the basis for this article about a country of 240 million people at the brink of apocalypse.

Based upon Pakistan’s severe climate experience, here is what Rafay Alam concludes, a widely shared viewpoint throughout the Global South:

There is a significant denialism on climate change in places like the United States. And it angers me because I see people affected. I see animals affected. And this is a lived experience for the global majority, the Global South. It’s extremely infuriating to see people who’ve participated in this global warming deny it, deny any accountability, try and move on as if nothing’s happened and try and continue to make money and drive that bottom line.

There’s an adage of the 1950s “Ugly Americans” that lingers to this day outside of America’s borders. It pejoratively references Americans as loud, arrogant, self-absorbed, demeaning, thoughtless, ignorant, with ugly ethnocentric behavior, which also applies to U.S. corporate interests internationally. Regrettably, climate change is reviving this debasing dictum in a very big way, 70 years later. And people who think today’s sociopolitical atmosphere is poisoned, divided, and postured for trouble in the USA should look over their shoulders, as anger foments around the world with America a target. Trouble’s universal.

Rafay Alam resides in Lahore (pop. 13M) known as the “City of Gardens.” It is the cultural heart of Pakistan with exquisite arts, cuisine, and music festivals, known for filmmaking and the recognized home of the intelligentsia. Lahore is a sophisticated metropolis that’s a safe place to live. According to the World Crime Index, the city is safer than living in London, New York, or Melbourne.

Yet, life for millions in Pakistan has changed for the worse seemingly overnight. Today, the country experiences persistent heat waves over 120°F in some cities, and summer is just beginning. Anything approaching the normal rhythm of life of past decades has been overwhelmed by brutal severely damaging climate change. The country is still recovering from the biblical flooding of 2022 when normal rainfall turned voracious 400% to 800% beyond anything ever experienced, a torrential downpouring lasting weeks in regions of the country that do not drain into the Indus Basin. Thus, a 100-kilometer (62-mile) artificial lake formed, displacing 10 million and impacting 30 million, bringing in its wake $35B infrastructure damage, roads swept away, schools swept away, hospitals swept away. It will take a generation to rebuild. This is climate change in full blast mode.

Rafay Alam:

We’ve seen temperatures since the middle of May to the first of June currently more than 50 degrees Centigrade, which is well over 120°F. Lahore, where I live is 44°C today, which is about 111°F… I go for a walk in the evenings when the sun sets It’s not unpleasant, but I notice animals and birds collapsed to the ground looking for water, dogs on the side of the road unable to get up… Recently, it was 125°F, the hottest place on Earth, at Mohenjo-Daro, which is home to an ancient civilization.

Accordingly, Pakistan is not just experiencing a scorching heat wave, it is actively experiencing the climate crisis in all its variations on a real time basis. And according to meteorologists: “It’s going to stay hotter for longer.”

Climate change has wrought an economic nightmare, as Pakistan has sought flood relief that came as loans, not grants or aid, which has doubled Pakistan’s external debt in only two years. This is devastating for a country that is trying to regain its footing and rebuild an economy that climate change clobbered.

Nevertheless, the country is learning to live with devastating temperatures by changing life’s normal patterns. Schools are let out by 12:00 noon but shutdown entirely when temperatures rise too far, which is a common experience of late.

Of even more concern, and possibly the most dangerous scenario of all, the monsoon season is coming by the end of June, early July which will convert dry heat to extreme humid heat with deadly wet bulb temperatures. At 95°F and 70% humidity, it’ll impact the human body like 120°F. That’s deadly because at that level the human body cannot release heat by sweating. Rather, it bakes internal organs. Hmm- it’s been triple digits for some time now with daytime forecasts to remain in triple digits to the end of June, and likely beyond into the heart of the summer.

Agriculture is 20% of Pakistan GDP. And according to Alam, a leading English newspaper recently ran a headline about crops decimated in Pakistan by heat, cotton basically sizzling, maize, mangos, and other vegetables and fodder for cattle, expecting a decline of productivity. Nearly one-half of the Pakistani workforce is in agriculture and they’re being hammered down to the poverty line by unforgiving climate change.

This heat wave is a man-made event due to the greenhouse gases consumed and thrown into the atmosphere by the Global North since the industrial revolution These greenhouse gases have to stop. (Alam)

Meanwhile, he claims the country must adapt as soon as possible to an off-the-rails climate system fed by profit-motives outside of Pakistan. He suggests changes to agriculture by working on heat-resistant crops. Currently, no crops can withstand 50-plus Centigrade temperatures. And the water economy must learn to adapt as 90% of water goes to agriculture, which is 20% of GDP employing 40% of the workforce, which is at the poverty line.

Meanwhile, it is currently harvesting season. Agricultural workers are waking up when the sun rises for only a couple of hours of work before it gets too hot to work. When it’s too hot to work any longer, people congregate inside for shelter from the sun. But those who live near fields are warned that snakes and scorpions also seek cooler spaces, entering homes en masse seeking shelter.

Alam’s biggest concern is for most Pakistanis who are middle class, working class and at the poverty line, unable to withstand climate shocks much further. Moreover, there are really not many safe places for them to go to escape global heat, unless they have a rich friend.

Even heading to the Himalaya mountains for cooler terrain could be treacherous. There are over 3,000 glaciers that, due to global warming, form glacial lakes in the mountains. Over time, these blow apart in outburst of devastating unannounced floods bringing down mountainsides as roads and bridges are washed away leaving those seeking cool mountain air stranded. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, the Hindu Kush Himalaya is a “hotspot of risk” for outburst floods.

Pakistan, unfortunately, has become a proving ground for what climate change is capable of. And there’s no reason to expect it to remain confined to the borders of Pakistan.

Rafay Alam first became aware of climate change’s potential impact nearly 20 years ago when he saw Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (Paramount Classics, May 2006), which opened a lot of eyes. Yet, the nations of the world have failed to adequately confront the primary cause, burning fossil fuels, that fuels radical climate change that’s whiplashed Pakistan’s environment beyond limits.

Alam believes the basis of the legal systems and the international system can’t cope with an existential crisis such as climate change: “One of the worst ways to deal with something like climate change is to divide the world into 200 different countries and have them argue with each other.” The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -IPCC- is testament to this, 30 years later and CO2 is still increasing each year without missing a beat, targeting Pakistan. But, for certain, Pakistan is not an isolated case.

According to Alam, in conclusion:

Earth’s ecosystem has been in balance since the last ice age… That civilization is over… the way that we interact with each other- extremely heavy energy use, extremely heavy water use, incredibly consumptive of natural resources producing greenhouse gases for just about everything… It’s this behavior, this civilization, which is at risk. And yes, it is very much an apocalypse.FacebookTwitter

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Robert Hunziker (MA, economic history, DePaul University) is a freelance writer and environmental journalist whose articles have been translated into foreign languages and appeared in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He can be contacted at: rlhunziker@gmail.com. Read other articles by Robert.

Low snow on the Himalayas threatens water security: study

AFP

Published June 17, 2024 

Snowmelt is the source of about a quarter of the total water flow of 12 major river basins that originate high in the Himalayan region. — AFP

Millions of people dependent on Himalayan snowmelt for water face a “very serious” risk of shortages this year after one of the lowest rates of snowfall, scientists warned on Monday.

Snowmelt is the source of about a quarter of the total water flow of 12 major river basins that originate high in the region, a report said.

“This is a wake-up call for researchers, policymakers, and downstream communities,” said report author Sher Muhammad, from the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

“Lower accumulation of snow and fluctuating levels of snow pose a very serious increased risk of water shortages, particularly this year.”


Snow and ice on the Himalayas are a crucial water source for around 240 million people in the mountainous regions, as well as for another 1.65 billion people in the river valleys below, according to ICIMOD.

While snow levels fluctuate each year, scientists say climate change is driving erratic rainfall and shifting weather patterns.

The report measured “snow persistence” — the time snow remains on the ground — with levels dropping almost a fifth below normal this year across the wider Hindu Kush and Himalaya region.

“This year’s snow persistence (18.5 per cent below normal) is the second-lowest in the past 22 years, narrowly trailing the record low of 19pc set in 2018,” Muhammad told AFP.

As well as Nepal, the inter-governmental ICIMOD organisation includes member countries Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar and Pakistan.

The report warned that ICIMOD “observations and projections indicate significant changes in the timing and intensity of stream flows”, with snow a key part.

“Snow plays a particularly important role in ensuring seasonal water availability,” it added.

The organisation has been monitoring snow in the region for over two decades, noting that 2024 marked a “significant anomaly”.

The Ganges river basin, which flows through India, had the “lowest snow persistence” that ICIMOD has recorded, 17pc below average, worse than the 15pc in 2018.

The Helmand River basin in Afghanistan recorded its second-lowest snow persistence levels, 32pc below normal.

The Indus River basin was down 23pc below normal levels, while the Brahmaputra River basin, which ends in Bangladesh, had snow persistence “notably below normal” at 15pc.

Miriam Jackson, the senior cryosphere specialist at ICIMOD, urged authorities to “take proactive measures to address possible drought situations”.

In Germany, Liberals Lead the Authoritarian Turn

The rise of the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland has prompted a wave of troubled reactions in Germany. But authoritarianism isn’t just a far-right creation, and today, liberals are leading the charge against basic democratic freedoms.

By Ingar Solty

May 27, 2024

Source: Jacobin

For German weekly Der Spiegel, there’s no doubt about the real meaning of the Alternative for Germany (AfD): this far-right party is, in fact, an “Alternative against Germany.” This headline referred to alleged wrongdoing by the AfD’s lead candidate for June’s elections to the European Parliament, TikTok star Maximilian Krah, who is said to have received payments from China. One of Krah’s employees was arrested on suspicion of spying for the People’s Republic; Der Spiegel raised the accusation of “treason.”

It might be observed that Germany, just like any other major power, itself extensively finances actors abroad and influences foreign countries’ internal affairs via its numerous party-affiliated foundations and NGOs. Obviously, Germany’s own secret services are also spying. But beyond that, we may well question those liberal anti-fascists who think that it is really so clever to use the term “treason” against a right-wing authoritarian party that claims to be doing “everything for Germany“ — an SA slogan used by Thuringia AfD leader Björn Höcke. One day they will wake up surprised that they themselves reestablished this illiberal and nationalist rhetoric in the Federal Republic’s political culture.

Obviously, left-wingers can already set the clock for when criminal prosecution with accusations of treason will once again be turned against them. They could, in coming years, be leveled against anyone who raises the slightest doubts and even calls for an open discussion about some of the important questions facing us. Such as whether massively expanded military spending is really such a good idea. Whether Germany’s nuclear armament — once demanded solely by hard-right warhorses such as Franz Josef Strauss, but today with a fresh, pious, cheerful, open “yes to the nuclear bomb“ from Green and liberal icons like former secretary of state Joschka Fischer — is really a good idea. Whether a new bloc confrontation against China and the deployment of the frigates Bayern and Württemberg to the South China Sea to “fly the flag“ for “our values and interests“ — as the cruiser division once did off the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory — will really help to secure peace and tackle global problems such as social inequality and the climate catastrophe.
Turning Point

The “Zeitenwende” (turning point) was announced by Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (of the Social Democratic Party, SPD) on February 27, 2022, without prior parliamentary discussion, let alone broad social debate — a democratic scandal in form alone. This is indeed a turning point also in content. It turns the clock not toward a golden future, but toward a dark German past.

The internal “Zeitenwende” is a return to a time of soldiers’ memorials, so that a “society addicted to happiness“ (as former Federal President Joachim Gauck once put it) can once again learn to honor as heroes those who died “defending Germany in the Hindu Kush.” It goes back to the time of the national service called “Pflichtjahr,” with which the same people who once put a bomb under social cohesion through the welfare-slashing “Agenda 2010” and the Hartz laws now want to “strengthen public spiritedness.” Perhaps they forgot that the “Pflichtjahr” already existed once in German history, or what its purpose was and remains. It was the Nazis who introduced it back in 1938 to ideologically repair what was broken in terms of material economic and social policy.

The internal “Zeitenwende” is also about the reintroduction of the military into public schools. According to Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (of the Free Democrats, FDP), children should practice warfare together with soldiers in the interests of a “relaxed relationship with the Bundeswehr” and for “our resilience.” Youth officers from the Bundeswehr would be let loose on pupils as “career advisors“ in order to solve the troops’ general recruitment problems with the current record numbers of teenagers in military service. But clearly, in times of tight labor markets, relying solely on the “economic draft” is no longer enough. This approach once replaced “citizens in uniform” with “precariat in uniform,” creating an “underclass army,” as Michael Wolffsohn described it. In this system, the former East Germany contributed no generals to the German army but almost two-thirds of the soldiers to the war in Afghanistan, following the motto “unemployed or Afghanistan.”

This strategy is, however, no longer adequate to reach the declared goal of a 203,000-strong army by 2031. Foreign recruits from within the European Union (EU) have also failed to materialize so far because youth unemployment in Southern Europe is no longer 50 percent or more, as it was during the euro crisis. Added to this is the drop-out rate during basic military training, which is sky-high because the reality of joining the army has little to do with the image promised by the €35 million a year Bundeswehr advertising plastered across trams, bus stops, and YouTube: camaraderie, wrenching around on cool, horsepower-packed vehicles, war as gaming (only without a reset button), globetrotting, saving the world, finding meaning in life.

And by all means, Germany needs new soldiers in view of the record numbers of reservists who subsequently refused to enlist once the Ukraine War began and whose desire to be shot up for their fatherland is obviously low. Their caution on this front is only surpassed, at least in one sense, by Green voters. In survey after survey — unlike the supporters of any other party — they call for weapons and military service for Ukrainians and other people; but only 9 percent of these Greens, according to a Forsa poll, would be willing to take up arms to defend Germany personally.

Meanwhile, the internal “Zeitenwende” is not only bringing the military back into schools, but also to universities. Here, the government and the conservative opposition, cheered on by the left-liberal media, want to violate the mandatory peace requirement in the German constitution and override the civilian clauses that, as a lesson from World War II, have so far prohibited research and science from being put at the service of private and for-profit arms manufacturers. In North Rhine–Westphalia, easily the country’s largest state, this has long since happened with the votes of the Christian Democrats and Free Democrats.

The internal “Zeitenwende” also means the return of the distinction between “good” (us, of course!) and “evil” (the others, who else?), between (Western) “civilization” and (Eastern) “barbarism.” What has changed is that the frontier of the “Eastern Problem” has been shifted further east and the barbarism no longer begins at the Polish border. We see the return of “hereditary enemies“ (once France, now Russia and China) and the “white man’s burden“ to civilize the barbarians, who are once again supposed to “heal from the German soul.” As former Maoist Reinhard Bütikofer, the Greens’ foreign policy spokesman in the European Parliament, recently put it, the Chinese must “simply let us transform them“ in such a way “that in the end something comes out that simply corresponds to the ideas we had about the country and about how the world as a whole should be organized.”
Enemies Within

The internal “Zeitenwende” is also the return of an ostentatious unwillingness to think about historical context or to take the “enemy” perspective (if not to promote international understanding, then at least to prevent the escalation of war). A knock-on-effect media ostracism punishes the mere attempt to think in such terms. Leftists are again called a “fifth column“ and prevented from exercising their freedom of assembly by illiberal justice and police violence — as recently happened during the suppressed Palestine Conference in Berlin. Alleged enemies from outside are banned by authoritarian means from entering Germany or speaking, as recently happened to the renowned American philosopher Nancy Fraser and the former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.

It is a symptom of the internal “Zeitenwende” when a federal minister of science and higher education justifies massive police violence against peacefully protesting students by referring to a muck-spreading article in the tabloid Bild. This authoritarian liberalism places its critics and those who merely exercise their civil rights under blanket suspicion of being enemies of the constitution. We see the internal “Zeitenwende” when the Bundestag passes laws overnight that chill scholarly debate and produce conformity of opinion, using penal measures where historians once debated openly. This was what happened two years ago with the tightening of the German Criminal Code and the German Bundestag’s “Holodomor resolution.”

Blacklists have long been back in force for “internal enemies” kept out of public service through tests of political conviction, as with the “extremism check“ in the state of Brandenburg. This is the newest incarnation of the old “Radikalenerlass“ that sought to keep leftists and other radicals from finding public employment. The Bundestag decided this January — with the votes of Social Democrats, Greens, and supposed Free Democrats — that migrants should only be granted citizenship if they are committed to the “liberal-democratic basic order” and the raison d’état of unconditional support for the Israeli state, regardless of which far-right extremist forces are currently governing it and which AI-controlled war crimes it is currently committing. But more than that, migrants are even to be deprived of their citizenship retroactively, for up to ten years, for failing to obey this standard. Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (Free Democrats) and the Social Democrats, among others, demanded this for dual citizens.

It was quite preposterous for these same people to solemnly warn against the far right’s plans for mass deportations — after the AfD’s so-called “Wannsee Conference 2.0“ with the far-right Identitarian Movement leader Martin Sellner became known — and raise scandal over the fact that AfD MP Gerrit Huy advocated dual citizenship at this meeting, in order to make it easier to remove German passports from people with a migration background. In any case, problems of credibility surely arise when the same people who call these plans a red line, because the withdrawal of citizenship was ultimately the Nazis’ means of driving out their opponents, now flirt with it themselves. The same could be said about the outrage over the AfD’s “remigration” dreams, which were already — without question — “an unvarnished plan of state terror” when AfD leader laid them out in his 2018 book. Such outrage looked rather implausible just a few weeks after the current government had itself torn up European asylum law and Scholz had called for “deportations on a grand scale” as part of the “new toughness in refugee policy“ welcomed by Der Spiegel.
Manufacturing Consent

The internal “Zeitenwende” also includes the return of agitation and propaganda in state and private media, which has little to do with the fourth estate and much to do with “manufacturing consent” — spreading images of the enemy, certainty of victory, and slogans of perseverance. This is partly an effect of the fact that for long stretches of postwar history the population was not prepared to follow its elites into rearmament and war operations.

The new propaganda includes the creation of a “Schicksalsgemeinschaft” (community of fate) with an external enemy, national myths, and a “dominant culture“ meant to hold together a country torn apart by social inequality and neoliberal politics, a general renationalization and militarization of language, and the promotion of emotional coldness. We see this internal “Zeitenwende,” for example, when the single highest-circulation newspaper has the largest German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall — share price since the Ukraine war: up 523 percent — call for a return to compulsory military service because “the Zeitenwende . . . is a task for society as a whole“ and “liberal societies . . . must be able to stand up for their values.”

If things continue at this pace, initiatives such as the “Federal Program for Patriotism“ called for by the Christian Democrats will inevitably lead to the celebration of a reincarnated “Sedan Day,” used in the German Empire to celebrate the victory over the hereditary enemy of the time, France. Some planners are surely already considering how a military victory over Russia — which was never likely and is now increasingly unlikely — could be appropriately anchored in the collective memory of the masses.

The many articles from bourgeois-liberal media that warn against the AfD in the spirit of an “impotent“ anti-fascism or accuse the right-wing authoritarian nationalists of “treason” apparently do not notice that every text they write with a morally upraised index finger is driving at least a few hundred new supporters to the right-wing extremists. Their voters are led to believe that by voting for the AfD they are sticking it to the man. Surely these AfD voting masses fail to recognize that — to paraphrase Bertolt Brecht — they are actually just like the calves that trot behind the drum for which they themselves provide the drumhead. But the liberals fail to recognize one thing above all: it doesn’t take the far right itself to bring back the ghosts of the dark past. It is they themselves, the liberals, who conjure them up.
Heroic Thinking?

The “internal Zeitenwende” promoted by left liberals is already rehabilitating the concepts, language, political styles, and means of the German nationalist and authoritarian right of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. “National security” is back, in the name of which the otherwise sometimes-invoked international law can be trampled upon. Also back are “raison d’état,” “autarchy,” which is now called “derisking,” massive military spending, and the call to be “ready for war“ — because otherwise, of course, “in five to eight years“ the Russians will be knocking on your front door. Once again, there are warnings of “war fatigue“ among the people, public pledges and military parades in front of state parliaments, and the “new desire for heroes“ that marks a return of “heroic thinking,” which tells us that in the bloody “unwinnable war“ of position and attrition in Ukraine — reminiscent of Verdun and World War I — “the slaughter is necessary.”

Moreover, a new cult of violence has emerged. The same politicians who bewail the “violence” supposedly committed by youths who set off fireworks on New Year’s Eve have established a political culture whose slogan is “weapons, weapons, and more weapons.” Liberal journalists and a federal Green Economics minister rave about the technical data of the latest weapons systems from the military-industrial complex like the pimps from the German Jungvolk of old, only to then act like first-person shooters in front of the screen celebrating kill counts against enemy soldiers dehumanized as “orcs“ and gloating over the killing of Russians from “world-record distances.” In short: all of this is returning in the words and deeds of the “liberal” middle classes, for which no Nazis are needed.

Fascists are not needed in order to introduce “Veterans’ Day“ and memorials to fallen soldiers or to demand “military education in schools.” They are not needed in order to declare Holocaust enablers like Stepan Bandera as freedom fighters. And they are not needed for there to arise an unprecedented historical revisionism — and the monstrous Holocaust relativization that equates Vladimir Putin with Adolf Hitler and Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine with Nazi Germany’s war of extermination in the East. Did these people perhaps forget that the aim of that war was the enslavement of the Eastern peoples and the liquidation of their entire social elite — at least 30 million people — through systematic massacres of the unarmed (“Kommissarbefehl“) and systematic starvation (as during the siege of Leningrad, with more than one million civilian deaths)? That this was all part of the “General Plan East,” from which the “Final Solution” plan for the systematic murder of the European Jewry also emerged?

While liberals love to talk about the “Putler” on X (formerly Twitter), it was an influential editor at the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Berthold Kohler, who even before the Russian war crime in Bucha became known, used the term “war of extermination” for the Ukraine invasion. He was, of course, fully aware that he was equating Russia’s war against Ukraine, which according to United Nations figures has claimed at least 10,810 civilian lives in more than two years, with the “Russian campaign” of the Nazis, who killed 27 million Soviet citizens from Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia in this “crusade against communism” in less than four years, about half of them civilians.

It was not Nazis but the European Parliament that four years ago, with the votes of the liberals and in the spirit of the historical revisionism of Ernst Nolte, blamed the Soviet Union for World War II. The liberal-left newspaper taz and the Green Youth already on their own initiative performed AfD’s fascist Björn Höcke’s hoped-for “180-degree turnaround in remembrance politics.” Hence the Berlin daily, under the title “Putin is the new Stalin,” explained to its green-alternative readership that “the real history of World War II” was “that Stalin had planned this war . . . long before Hitler came to power.” The Green Youth declared Operation Barbarossa the climax of a war of “settlement-conquest“ by a Russian “colonial state” which today needs decolonizing — thus giving retroactive legitimacy to the Nazis and their claimed “European mission“ to liberate the “Eastern peoples” from the Russian Hun.

Incidentally, an anti-feminist rollback does not require an extreme right-wing incel and “men’s rights movement,” either. Seven years ago, when AfD man Höcke called for an unwavering “masculinity” as a prerequisite for military prowess at the rally for anti-immigration movement Pegida in Dresden, he was scolded for being old fashioned. In the course of the internal Zeitenwende, the same demands are now coming from the so-called bourgeois center, for example when the award-winning literary scholar Tobias Haberl explained in Der Spiegel that the “German city-dwelling man” with his “polka-dot socks” who “is capable of cooking” is “too soft for the new reality,” which is why we need a return to the “necessary toughness” and the “conflict orientation of his fathers,” who — but only for our own good! — regularly beat us with their belts because they still knew that “not every problem can be discussed away.”
Hurtling Toward the Past

For liberals, it is part of the new normal to label their opponents and critics of (one-sided) arms deliveries as “lumpen pacifists,” “Putin’s willing executioners,” and “second-hand war criminals.” It is liberals who are already preparing for the time after the war in Ukraine and demanding that “pacifism must not be allowed to rise again.” It was the liberal newspaper ZEIT that, on the exact day of the eightieth anniversary of Joseph Goebbels’s “Do you want total war?“ speech, entitled the interview with a left-wing liberal, Eva Illouz, “I wish for total victory,” explaining that she wished for this “total and annihilating victory” because “the Russians are committing crimes against humanity every day that must not go unpunished” and because “Putin is threatening the ideal values of Europe.” (Illouz later had the audacity to publicly excommunicate her academic colleague Judith Butler from the Left, because, even though they are Jewish, they do not follow Illouz’s pro–Gaza War position.)

In short, none of all this requires the far right. The same people who today warn conservatives not to tear down the “fire wall” to the AfD, as a lesson from the history of 1933 — while they, like former health minister Jens Spahn declare that fire wall to, run to the right of Giorgia Meloni in Europe, and while they, like multiple corruption scandal suspect European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, kiss the “post-fascist” Italian leader wherever they meet her — do not even notice the flamethrower in their own hands, with which they have long since set the country on fire.

It should be noted that it is not only the die-hard conservatives of the “Stahlhelm faction” but also the “left” wing of the bourgeois class who are particularly committed to the internal Zeitenwende. Sure, it was the Christian Democratic foreign minister in waiting, Roderich Kiesewetter, who demanded a few weeks ago that the “war must be taken to Russia” and that “everything should be done” to “destroy” not only “Russian military facilities and headquarters” or “oil refineries,” but also central government offices like “ministries.” It was Kiesewetter who recently suggested that Ukrainian refugees in Germany should be stripped of their income as an incentive for them to let themselves be shipped off to war.

Liberal extremism, however, does not need die-hard conservatives. This approach — typified by the fact that it takes no account of the true circumstances, risks, and realistic goals, that crusades against “totalitarianism” with a somehow totalitarian fanaticism of its own, with a self-righteous moralism that is to be sated by all available means — has its ultimate origins elsewhere. We see this in the former Maoists in the German Green Party, for whom the “West” and NATO replaced Maoist sects and China as the vanguard of history. Then again, it was a Social Democratic defense minister who called for German “war capability.” And when the Christian Democrat Kiesewetter demanded a further 100, 200, 300 billion euros for the German armed forces — even as austerity measures are imposed on the working class — his demands were, of course, merely an echo of the SPD politicians Scholz, Eva Högl, parliamentary commissioner for the armed forces, and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

The warning of “war fatigue” came from a Green foreign minister, who would have liked to dress up as a Leopard tank for carnival and who, as a result of a profound Freudian slip, has long seen herself as “at war with Russia.” It was the Green economic minister who went into raptures about the Panzerhaubitze 2000 armored howitzer on a TV talk show: “It can really do something!” It was Free Democrat Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, chairwoman of the defense committee, who answered a talk show question as to whether she had served by saying that she was “good for the Volkssturm.” And the call for “weapons, weapons, and more weapons” also came from a Green federal politician, in this case Anton Hofreiter, who also wants to make systematic starvation a principle of German power politics again, just like in the good old days of the siege of Leningrad. As an example of the foreign policy he called for, which would finally return to “negotiating with the colt on the table,” he suggested in an interview with the Berliner Zeitung in December 2022 that, with the European breadbasket of Ukraine on the leash, 1.4 billion Chinese should — because one of them might once again “dare” to “look cross-eyed at a German“! — be openly threatened with death by starvation: “If a country were to withhold rare earths from us, we could reply, ‘What do you actually want to eat?’”

It should thus come as no surprise that it is the left-liberal bourgeois class who are now publicly correcting their attitudes and proving their loyalty to the fatherland through symbolic vows, as if it were August 1914 all over again. A long list of figures have felt it necessary to symbolically withdraw their objection to military service and swear an oath of allegiance to the nation in arms. It ranges from Scholz and the “green-alternative” economics minister Habeck to aged intellectuals, journalists, and writers such as Ralf Bönt, Stern editor Thomas Krause, and taz editor Tobias Rapp to other public figures such as the Protestant bishop Ernst-Wilhelm Gohl, the comedian Wigald Boning, and the “eternal court jester“ Campino from “punk” band Die Toten Hosen. It was then only logical that Rapp — coeditor of the war-loving “radical left” organ Jungle World — recently welcomed Veterans’ Day in Der Spiegel as a “big step away from old lies”: “A society” can now “say: we can’t take the burden off your shoulders of having fought and possibly killed. But we can give you a stage once a year and remind you of this burden. It was not pointless.”

Theodor W. Adorno repeatedly expressed the feeling that even more dangerous than the traditional far right was the right-wing radicalization of the “center” — of the return of nationalism, authoritarianism, and fascism in the language of democracy. Those who believe they can best beat the AfD by taking their own migration policy, culture war, and political tools from the “age of catastrophes” are doing the far right’s business for them. In the short term, the AfD’s poll ratings may fall as a result of the scandal raising over its lead candidate for the European elections. In a recent interview for Italy’s La Repubblica he announced that “he would never say that anyone who wore a SS uniform was automatically a criminal” — prompting even French far-right leader Marine Le Pen to break off collaboration with the party. In the long term, however, the AfD may lean back and take a rest, for they know that their politics are winning. Germany is hurtling toward a right-wing past at breathtaking speed; however, it is not the AfD in the driver’s seat, but the liberals themselves.

Opinion

Restoring mountain ecosystems in the Himalayas is a global Imperative

The Hindu Kush Himalaya faces a critical need for the restoration of its diverse ecosystems, underpinned by the indispensable stewardship of Indigenous communities and local efforts


Freshwater ecosystems such as lakes, rivers, and wetlands – like these in Band-e Amir National Park, Afghanistan – provide an array of services important to livelihoods, economic development and environmental resilience. (Image: Alex Treadway / ICIMOD, CC BY-NC)


Bandana Shakya

May 25, 2024


Mountain ecosystems, including rangelands, wetlands, peatlands and both alpine and temperate forests, are unique habitats characterised by complex geography and rich biodiversity. These ecosystems are integral to the cultures and traditions of diverse Indigenous communities, providing essential goods and services such as food, water, climate regulation and cultural aesthetics. Despite their high economic value, they face profound challenges, primarily driven by global and local changes.

The degradation of mountain ecosystems poses a direct threat to the sustained provision of crucial goods and services. There is an urgent need for the policy community, national governments, regional bodies and the private sector to come together and significantly invest in the restoration of mountain ecosystems in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH). While there are several commendable efforts underway, they are not sufficient to address the magnitude and complexity of the challenges at hand. Additionally, there is a global movement to bring mountain-related issues to the forefront of international discourse and to forge robust global partnerships for mountain ecosystems.

Outlined below are key policy priorities for the HKH:

Strengthening Indigenous stewardship: Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs) have been the traditional stewards of these vital resources. Existing practices, including payment for ecosystem services, have incentivised efforts to preserve upstream ecosystem integrity, benefiting downstream areas. Further incentivising landscape practices rooted in traditional ecological knowledge is crucial for securing the rights of local communities and enhancing their leadership and ownership. Supporting slow food movements and ethnic cuisines, along with strengthening herder networks are essential. Efforts to secure conservation corridors, community-conserved areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) are key for promoting IPLC-led inclusive landscape governance.

A herding community, with their pack animals, traverses the rocky and rugged paths of Bhutan’s Laya landscape. This journey highlights the challenging terrain and the traditional modes of transportation that are integral to the region. (Image: Jitendra Bajracharya / ICIMOD)

Scaling nature-based solutions (NbS): NbS such as forest rehabilitation, nature tourism, rangeland restoration and springshed management are long-term integrated solutions that must be scaled up to generate climate, biodiversity and sustainable development co-benefits. The Himalayan Resilience Enabling Action Programme under the Climate Action for Resilient Asia (CARA) initiative is working to scale these solutions to match the rate of degradation and address societal challenges related to water, livelihoods and disaster risk.

Innovating for biodiversity and sustainability: Mechanisms such as payments for ecosystem services, biodiversity grants and impact investments need to be both inclusive and fair to empower local communities and attract private sector engagement. Government incentives, tax credits and green bonds could further stimulate sustainable and inclusive practices. It is imperative to explore innovative policy and financing avenues to ensure the vitality of mountain ecosystems for future generations and balance environmental preservation with socio-economic development.
Global partnerships investments and pooling resources

The recently adopted Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework emphasises the urgent need for increased financial investment in biodiversity actions. However, the current level of global financing for nature, and particularly for mountain biodiversity investment, remains inadequate. To enhance overall climate resilience, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development for both mountain and downstream communities, it is crucial to boost investments in mountain ecosystems and expand the scope of community-driven actions.

Cross-learning among countries and the sharing of best practices are essential strategies for building and expanding partnerships aimed at mobilising financial resources. The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) Call to Action, endorsed by a ministerial declaration signed by the eight relevant countries, plays a pivotal role in reinforcing regional cooperation for mountain areas and facilitating collaborative actions to tackle transboundary issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, poverty and landscape degradation. The success of such initiatives hinges on the collaborative efforts of governments, non-governmental agencies, the private sector, local communities and international development partners to come together and pool their resources to amplify their joint efforts.

A red panda perched in a tree. The Hindu Kush Himalayan region (HKH) is an important biodiversity hotspot. (Image: Jitendra Raj Bajracharya / ICIMOD, CC BY-NC)
Making the business case for mountain ecosystems

The economic case for conservation: Mountains, recognised as biodiversity hotspots, are crucial for the preservation of Earth’s biological richness. Adopting knowledge-based approaches for biodiversity mapping, monitoring and valuation is essential. These methods provide crucial insights that can drive the adoption of NbS. Economic valuation and natural capital accounting are key tools that can inform investment decisions and help allocate more resources towards the conservation of mountain landscapes, particularly those maintained by IPLCs.

Environmental resilience: Mountain ecosystems serve as systemic enablers that foster positive relationships between nature and people. High-altitude rangelands, peatlands and wetlands play a significant role in climate-related decision-making and investments aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, especially given their role as carbon sinks. Strategic investments are needed to highlight the link between mountain ecosystems and essential resources like food, water and energy security. Moreover, there is a need for incentives to expand mechanisms that prevent human-wildlife conflicts and enhance capacities, as well as to support innovative sustainable land-use practices. These efforts are fundamental in maintaining the ecological balance and ensuring the resilience of these environments

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Sustainable development: Mountain ecosystems in the Himalayas are fundamental to the traditional livelihoods of mountain communities, offering vast potential for driving green economies. Initiatives from organic agriculture to ecotourism and renewable energy harness these ecosystems’ unique attributes to promote sustainable economic growth. Recognising mountain ecosystems as engines of sustainable development can bolster prosperity both within and beyond these regions, boost the global economy and help attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

As we progress through this UN decade on ecosystem restoration, there is a clear urgency for substantial global investment and incentives dedicated to the restoration of HKH ecosystems. Restoring these ecosystems is not just a regional concern but a global imperative. These ecosystems provide not only measurable benefits but also hold immense intrinsic and existential value. Their preservation is crucial for maintaining the natural heritage and cultural significance that enrich our global community.

Innovative financing mechanisms, blending public and private finance, along with other incentive measures, are essential for the effective restoration and regeneration of critical ecosystems in the HKH. Let us act collectively to ensure the resilience of mountain economies and landscapes, from which benefits flow into river basins downstream and extend to the global community at large.

The author is coordinator for the Action Area on Restoring and Regenerating Landscapes at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The views expressed are her own

 

Experts Call for Early Warning as Hindu Kush Himalaya Region May Face Extreme Weather Events

Mohd. Imran Khan | 16 May 2024 | NEWSCLICK INDIA

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A new climate outlook report says Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan may witness above average temperatures and higher rainfall than normal this year.

Patna/Kathmandu: Though the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast the onset of monsoon on time this year, after a scorching summer, experts have warned that the countries, such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region should brace for what might be a difficult monsoon season ahead. They have warned that these countries are likely to witness above average temperatures and higher rainfall than normal this year.

Scientists at the Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have said that the weather outlook for June to September comes after a heatwave broke temperature records across the region last month, forcing schools to close, impacting crops and sparking forest fires.

While pre-monsoon showers have provided relief to parts of South Asia this month, the climate outlook published recently suggests that any respite may be temporary.

The consensus from technical experts at the 28 sessions of the South Asian Climate Outlook Forum (SASCOF-28) held on April 29, 2024 in Pune, India is that the El Niño (it refers to a warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures) conditions prevailing over the equatorial Pacific region are likely to weaken, giving way to neutral El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions during early part of the monsoon season. (ENSO has a significant impact on monsoon variability.)

During the second half of the southwest monsoon season, La Niña (periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures) conditions are likely to develop: conditions commonly associated with above normal rain.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan are all expected to receive higher rainfall. And this rainfall will happen in a context of an overall warming trend: of high-than-normal both minimum and maximum temperatures, the scientists have predicted.

“In spite of the fact that last year was a year of below average rainfall in many parts of the HKH countries, we saw catastrophic floods hit region after region, community after community, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalaya,” said Mandira Shrestha, programme coordinator, Climate Services, at ICIMOD, said at the forum.

The climate outlook said that “In that context, this year’s monsoon outlook is worrying. It is also set against an overall warming trend, which we know is linked to greater melting of snow and glacier and the loss of the permafrost – the hidden glue that stabilises many mountain slopes, and whose thawing is often a key factor in the sorts of devastating flash floods and landslides we are now seeing across our region. This forecast is an alert for funders, multilateral agencies and disaster management officials in governments: multi-hazard early warning systems in this hugely populated region of rising risk must urgently be rolled out.”

One Extreme to Another: Record-Breaking Temperatures

While some regions will grapple with deadly downpours, others will face searing heat between June to September 2024.

As per the SASCOF-28 Climate Outlook, maximum temperatures between June to September 2024 suggest that the seasonal maximum temperatures are most likely to be above normal over most parts of the region. Some isolated areas are likely to see normal to below normal maximum temperatures. The current heat wave is also likely to continue through the monsoon with minimum temperatures also likely to be higher than the normal.

The regional climate outlook for the 2024 southwest monsoon season over South Asia was collaboratively developed by all nine National Meteorological and Hydrological Services of South Asia with support from international experts.

CLIMATE CHANGE: THE CLIMATE MIGRANTS

Umar Bacha 

DAWN

Published May 19, 2024

Aerial view of a village in the Dubair Valley after the floods in April this year | Photos by the writer

For 22-year-old Barkat Ali, the floods of 2022 might have washed away his home, but not his dreams of a better future.

The eldest of five siblings, Barkat was among the at least seven million Pakistanis who were displaced in the ‘biblical’ floods of two years ago. An October 2023 report of the International Office of Migration (IOM) said that over a million of those displaced were yet to be resettled.

Barkat’s family, which hails from Lower Kohistan in the country’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, is among those unfortunate ones. They had to leave their homes in Baneel — a small village surrounded mostly by pine trees in the Dubair Valley — with “only the clothes on their back,” he tells Eos.

Before moving to the town of Oghi in nearby Mansehra, Barkat and his family spent over a year in a relative’s field nearby, sleeping under the open sky.

During this time, continues Barkat, the family was hopeful of returning to their land and rebuilding their house. “While we had lost our home and cattle, we still had land,” he says, adding that they grew enough wheat and maize as well as fruits and vegetables to not have to worry about food.

While the 2022 floods caused mayhem nationwide, such climate-induced calamities are happening more frequently in Pakistan’s mountainous north. In a once prosperous and scenic valley in Kohistan, forced migrations are turning into an exodus

But the slow pace of reconstruction — the public health facilities in Dubair that were damaged during the flood have not yet been reconstructed, while the hydroelectric power station on the Dubair River in Ranolia also remains offline — compelled them to seek refuge elsewhere.

“Everything is gone,” he continues wistfully, as he takes a break from his work as a daily-wage labourer in Oghi, Mansehra. “It was not easy to leave our home,” says Barkat. “Everyone cried a lot. My father was constantly turning back to have another look at his village, not knowing whether he would ever be able to return.”

Barkat’s 65-year-old father, like his son, works as a daily-wage labourer to help the family in their struggle for survival and to help his son continue his dream of getting an education.

Barkat is enrolled in a distance learning programme at an Islamabad university, studying digital media marketing and broadcasting, using only his smartphone.

With paths and pavements washed away in the floods, villagers use rope to cross Ranolia and reach their homes in Dubair


COMPOUNDING PROBLEMS

Maulana Fazal Wahab, the chairman of Ranolia tehsil, says more than 60 percent of the roughly 100,000 people of the area have migrated to other areas since 2010.

The migrations took place in the wake of floods in 2010, 2016, 2019, 2022 and, most recently, in April this year, following heavy rainfall and flooding that, according to the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) KP, claimed 63 lives in the province.

It is not just torrential rains that disrupt and imperil life in these areas. Landslides are known to cause fatal accidents and, in the wake of rising global temperatures, the threat of glacial lake outburst floods (GLOF) has also emerged in KP and Gilgit Baltistan (GB).

The ministry of climate change says glaciers in the country’s northern mountain ranges (the Hindu Kush, Himalayas and Karakorum) are melting rapidly. A total of 3,044 glacial lakes have developed in GB and KP. While glacial lakes may have been forming over geological timescales, their rapid proliferation and expansion in Pakistan are more closely associated with the past century or so, particularly as global temperatures have risen.

“Of these, 33 glacial lakes have been assessed to be prone to hazardous GLOF,” the ministry writes on its website. It claims more than seven million people, in the two regions, are vulnerable to the dangers posed by GLOF.

This compounds the concerns of the locals, including in various areas of Lower Kohistan — such as Ranolia, Dubair Bala and Dubair Khas — where flash floods have become more frequent. The flooding also damages bridges and river crossings, disconnecting the valley from the Karakoram Highway and greatly limiting access and the mobility of the local population.

Wahab, the tehsil chairman, says a 37-kilometre stretch of the Ranolia-Dubair main road and the roads in the Ranolia valley have been completely washed away by the floods several times. “People have no choice but to leave the area, because life comes to a complete standstill [in the wake of such disasters],” he tells Eos.

Barkat says that, during such situations, the locals are often left with no choice but to reconstruct and repair the roads and bridges on a self-help basis.

“However, it is unfair to expect from people — who have lost everything including their home, land and livelihood — to contribute to road repair under such circumstances,” he says.

Villagers carry food items, other essentials on their shoulders while walking to their village in the Dubair Valley

UPENDED LIVES

Muhammad Riaz, a teacher, lived a happy life with his wife and eight children. He had a 12-room house on a terraced mountain along the Dubair River. During the floods in April, the torrential rains triggered landslides and his house caved in in a matter of minutes.

“My world has completely collapsed,” he tells Eos. “It wasn’t just a house for me. It was the centre of my dreams.” He says his family has no option but to leave.

But with exits from the village, including pedestrian paths, yet to be repaired, he has chosen to stay in the area for the time being and not risk “the treacherous terrain” with his young family.

Riaz says that, in order to buy essentials, he has to walk for seven hours to the market in Ranolia — with the journey including parts that require a steep upward climb.

He says the situation is desperate, with food and water shortage rampant. He is also worried about his children and the uncertain future facing them. “They want to go to school, but there is no means of getting there,” he says. “Every day I tell them that everything is going to be okay. But deep down, I know that we are all on a long and hard road, and that this road has no end in sight.”

Healthcare is the other major casualty, particularly during calamities in far-flung and smaller areas. The public health centres, including the rural health centre and basic health units, were damaged last month and are out of commission.

Patients from across the valley have to be carried — mostly on makeshift wooden stretchers locally known as dangai — to the sole privately operated hospital in the main town of Dubair. At a large number of points, the path is narrow and zigzags a lot. Sometimes, it can take hours to get the patient, in need of timely medical care, to the hospital.

Yar Gul, from a nearby village, had brought a patient to the hospital. He says it took him and nearly 20 other relatives around 12 hours to get to the hospital.

A teenage boy, who was hit in the head by a stone, wasn’t so lucky, says Gul. “He died during the trip and the family had to return midway.”

NOT UNUSUAL APATHY

The assistant commissioner (AC) of Ranolia, Iqbal Hussain Khattak, says the biggest challenge for people, particularly in villages in the Dubair Valley, is the loss of their crops and the inundation of their agricultural lands.

While crediting his employers, the state, for doing “its part” for the rehabilitation work in Dubair, the bureaucrat acknowledges that more resources and funds are needed, as well as alternative settlements and funds for a road that is constructed at a distance from the river.

The AC says the administration had shifted vulnerable families to government buildings in 2022 and claimed that some of those families were still living there.

“But the majority have migrated to bigger cities and towns in search of a better life, and to create a distance between them and the areas susceptible to climate-induced disasters.”g

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Shangla, KP.
X: @umar_shangla

Published in Dawn, EOS, May 19th, 2024

Asia hit hardest by climate and weather disasters last year, says UN

Agence France-Presse
April 23, 2024 

A man with his camel wade across a flooded street after heavy monsoon rains in Pushkar, in India's Rajasthan state on July 10, 2023. © Himanshu Sharma, AFP


Asia was the world's most disaster-hit region from climate and weather hazards in 2023, the United Nations said Tuesday, with floods and storms the chief cause of casualties and economic losses.

Global temperatures hit record highs last year, and the UN's weather and climate agency said Asia was warming at a particularly rapid pace.

The World Meteorological Organization said the impact of heatwaves in Asia was becoming more severe, with melting glaciers threatening the region's future water security.

The WMO said Asia was warming faster than the global average, with temperatures last year nearly two degrees Celsius above the 1961 to 1990 average.

"The report's conclusions are sobering," WMO chief Celeste Saulo said in a statement.

"Many countries in the region experienced their hottest year on record in 2023, along with a barrage of extreme conditions, from droughts and heatwaves to floods and storms.

"Climate change exacerbated the frequency and severity of such events, profoundly impacting societies, economies, and, most importantly, human lives and the environment that we live in."

The State of the Climate in Asia 2023 report highlighted the accelerating rate of key climate change indicators such as surface temperature, glacier retreat and sea level rise, saying they would have serious repercussions for societies, economies and ecosystems in the region.

"Asia remained the world's most disaster-hit region from weather, climate and water-related hazards in 2023," the WMO said.

Heat, melting and floods

The annual mean near-surface temperature over Asia in 2023 was the second highest on record, at 0.91 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 average, and 1.87 C above the 1961-1990 average.

Particularly high average temperatures were recorded from western Siberia to central Asia, and from eastern China to Japan, the report said, with Japan having its hottest summer on record.


As for precipitation, it was below normal in the Himalayas and in the Hindu Kush mountain range in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Meanwhile southwest China suffered from a drought, with below-normal precipitation levels in nearly every month of the year.

The High-Mountain Asia region, centered on the Tibetan Plateau, contains the largest volume of ice outside of the polar regions.

Over the last several decades, most of these glaciers have been retreating, and at an accelerating rate, the WMO said, with 20 out of 22 monitored glaciers in the region showing continued mass loss last year.

The report said 2023 sea-surface temperatures in the northwest Pacific Ocean were the highest on record.

'Urgency' for action

Last year, 79 disasters associated with water-related weather hazards were reported in Asia. Of those, more than 80 percent were floods and storms, with more than 2,000 deaths and nine million people directly affected.

"Floods were the leading cause of death in reported events in 2023 by a substantial margin," the WMO said, noting the continuing high level of vulnerability of Asia to natural hazard events.

Hong Kong recorded 158.1 millimeters of rainfall in one hour on September 7 – the highest since records began in 1884, as a result of a typhoon.

The WMO said there was an urgent need for national weather services across the region to improve tailored information to officials working on reducing disaster risks.

"It is imperative that our actions and strategies mirror the urgency of these times," said Saulo.

"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to the evolving climate is not merely an option, but a fundamental necessity."


(AFP)