UN Chief, on Pakistani Floods, African Famine: Ignoring Climate Change Is ‘Pure Suicide’
UN Secretary-General António Guterres will visit Pakistan Wednesday, where he will appeal for massive aid to the country after torrential monsoon rains and melting glaciers brought flash floods that put one-third of its territory under water.
“Tomorrow I will be flying to Pakistan to express my deep solidarity with the Pakistani people and to appeal for the massive support of the international community to the Pakistanis, in this hour of need after the devastating floods that we are witnessing,” the UN chief said on Tuesday at the UN headquarters in New York.
Guterres spoke to reporters before heading to the Security Council chamber for a meeting on the situation in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power. The International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday that its inspectors were “gravely concerned” after finding damaged buildings at the plant.
The UN secretary-general said that while “there is a lot of attention on the war in Ukraine,” the effects of climate change, as seen in Pakistan, must not be ignored.
“People tend to forget there is another war – the war we are waging on nature, and nature is striking back, and climate change is supercharging the destruction of our planet,” he said.
“Pakistan, Chad, and the Horn of Africa, where the drought is causing famine. All these things represent an enormous threat to all of us,” he said. “Today it is Pakistan. Tomorrow it can be anywhere else,” he added. “To deal with climate change, that is the defining issue of our time, with a business-as-usual approach is pure suicide,” Guterres said.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency says at least 1,314 people, including 458 children, have been killed and over 12,700 have been injured by the floods. Over 1.1 million houses have been damaged and 560,000 houses have been destroyed. More than 5,700 kilometers of roads have been damaged, and 246 bridges were damaged or destroyed due to the floods. More than 630,000 people displaced by the deluge are reportedly living in relief camps, most of them in Sindh, and many more are living with host communities.
