{"id":17869,"date":"2015-07-05T14:52:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-05T18:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=17869"},"modified":"2021-02-04T10:07:46","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T15:07:46","slug":"najam-in-pakistan-media-coping-with-extreme-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2015\/07\/05\/najam-in-pakistan-media-coping-with-extreme-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Najam Explains Climate Change & Extreme Weather"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Karachi-Pakistan-Heatwave\"<\/a>
Nearly 1400 people dead in Pakistan heat wave, mostly in Karachi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As Southern Pakistan continues to swelter in a severe heat wave that has left some 1400 dead, there is much discussion on the link between global climate change and a spate of extreme weather events in South Asia and globally.\u00a0Prof. Adil Najam,<\/a> Dean of the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University,<\/a>\u00a0and an expert on climate and development policy in developing countries has been explaining the nature of that linkage to media in Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Najam was interviewed and quoted in detail in two feature reports on the\u00a0subject published in The Friday Times<\/em><\/a> (July 3, 2015) and The News on Sunday<\/em><\/a> (July 5, 2015).<\/p>\n

Speaking to\u00a0The News on Sunday<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0the Sunday edition of Pakistan’s largest English daily, Najam\u00a0said that an increasing incidence of extreme weather events – not just in Pakistan, but around the globe –\u00a0may be\u00a0nature’s way of warning us on the impact of climate change – but that we are not listening.\u00a0The article, titled\u00a0“Coping with Climate Change”<\/a>\u00a0quoted Najam to make the point:<\/p>\n

\u201cScience is beginning to see the patterns in the frequency and ferocity of extreme events around the world,\u201d says Dr Adil Najam, a Pakistani scholar who is dean of the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. \u201cWe are beginning to realise that when climate change exacerbates it can bring not only localised shocks, but also global implications. And when these become repeated and more frequent can cripple communities and have knock-on impacts elsewhere,\u201d he explains.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s reminding us of just how dependent we, as a species, remain on nature and its services. Despite all of our technological advances and global affluence, each time a natural calamity hits it shows us just how helpless we become in the face of nature\u2019s wrath,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, says Najam, we seem to be ignoring the alarm bells. \u201cNature is saying, don\u2019t mess with me; respect my limits but human arrogance continues to ignore that message,\u201d he says and warns, \u201cWe will do so at our own cost.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the entire article here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Earlier the Pardee School Dean was interviewed by\u00a0The Friday Times, <\/em>Pakistan’s most influencial news weekly,\u00a0for a feature article entitled\u00a0“Climate Change 101”<\/a> (July 3, 2015).\u00a0The feature looked in\u00a0depth\u00a0at the links between climate change and the heat wave that had hit the megacity of Karachi (population: 10 million).<\/p>\n

Najam suggested that the real issue at stake is not just the weather event but the lack of good governance, which exacerbates its\u00a0impacts. The article quotes Najam extensively to make this point:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation in Karachi demonstrates the types of challenges that a planet with a changing climate may pose; especially in mega-cities. While on\u00a0the one hand\u00a0the world has to continue and accelerate its efforts to reduce carbon emissions (mitigation) as a way of managing climate change, it is equally important\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and even more important for developing countries like Pakistan\u00a0\u2013\u00a0to prepare for the impacts of climate change (adaptation).\u201d<\/p>\n

Karachi\u2019s plight has a lesson to teach to Pakistan, one that the country repeatedly refuses to learn. \u201cPakistan\u2019s ultimate climate change challenge is about governance and about development. What this means is that in a state of maldevelopment, unequal access to basic human services, and especially bad governance the impacts of weather calamities will always multiply, as they did in Karachi,\u201d Dr. Najam explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cBetter governance in Karachi would not have changed\u00a0the heat or the temperature, but better governance\u00a0would have certainly made sure that so many people did not die,\u201d he said<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would have given them electricity\u00a0and water when they needed it,\u00a0would have given them health facilities, would have given them better working conditions,\u00a0would have given them a place to sit in a shade rather than literally die on\u00a0the streets,\u201d he added as a matter of fact.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In terms of policy steps to take, Najam argued that the challenge at hand is not policy content but policy implementation:<\/p>\n

The real question then steers us away from policymakers and pushes us more towards policy. Dr. Najam said that Pakistan has little to worry about in that department. \u201cThis is not a question of forming a ministry or creating another document.\u00a0Real policy will come when policymakers put climate change at\u00a0the centre of their work\u00a0\u2013\u00a0and not as another\u00a0\u2018khuda line\u2019\u00a0ministry,\u201d he asserted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means putting climate decisions at the heart of development decisions, of economic decisions,\u201d he informed.<\/p>\n

Dr. Najam expects little change until policy makers that have nothing to do with the climate policy own it as their own. \u201cI really do not expect to see change until our key finance, economic and development decision makers see themselves as\u00a0the custodians of climate policy,\u201d he said. However, of course, there is a clash.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe best example is energy policy. Not only have our energy planners been oblivious of the climate implications of their decisions, they have often been outright hostile to them. That is\u00a0the type of attitude that led to\u00a0the building up of the crisis we now see unfolding in Karachi,\u201d he added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can read the entire article here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Najam is the Inaugural Dean of the Pardee School. Earlier, he served as\u00a0Vice Chancellor (equivalent to president) of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in Lahore, Pakistan (2011-13) and as the Director of the Boston University Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future (2007-11). He\u00a0was a co-author for the Third and Fourth Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)\u00a0and serves\u00a0on the UN Committee on Development (CDP).\u00a0Learn more about him here.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1400 die in Pakistan heat wave. Adil Najam says it is bad governance, not cliamte change that killed them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2094,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8410],"tags":[8802,8680,1720,2098,509,2093,8765,8470,1697,9000],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17869"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17869"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17898,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17869\/revisions\/17898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}