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Ali Tauqeer Sheikh //DAWN: 13 February 2025
AS the winter smog blankets our cities from Lahore to Delhi, and farmers from Punjab to Bihar watch shifting monsoon patterns upend centuries-old agricultural practices, we are reminded daily that climate change knows no borders.
While Pakistan ranks amongst the world’s 10 most climate-vulnerable countries, this challenge extends across South Asia, home to the world’s largest concentration of climate-vulnerable populations. South Asia has emerged as the global epicentre of climate vulnerability, with scientific evidence showing unprecedented changes in regional weather patterns and ecosystems.
Dawn Media Group’s climate change conference last week in Islamabad was a learning hub, and a melting pot of ideas presented by over 100 learned speakers. For me, the key takeaway was best distilled by the conference slogan: ‘let’s weather the change-together’.
This message is at its strongest when it comes to the regional aspect of the climate crisis. Our common destiny is written in the geography we inhabit. From the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea, we share ecosystems that have shaped our civilisations. Our futures are inextricably linked through common environmental systems that transcend national boundaries.
This interconnectedness manifests itself in multiple ways. River flows, whether in abundance and causing floods or scarce and leading to droughts, affect communities across borders.
Recent cloudburst incidents in the upper catchment areas resulted in cascading losses and damage across the downstream communities of Sialkot (2020), Uttarakhand (2021), Nowshera (2022), Hunza and Himachal Pradesh (2023). They exemplify the trans-jurisdictional nature of climate extremes.
When glacial lakes burst in Nepal, the impacts ripple through Bihar and Bangladesh. When Cyclone Yaas (2021) struck the Bay of Bengal, its effects were felt in Odisha and West Bengal. Cyclonic storm Biparjoy (2023) changed its mind at the last minute and made landfall near Jakhau Port in Gujarat, India, after particularly affecting Thatta, Badin, and Karachi with heavy rainfall and strong winds. Such persistent challenges cannot be effectively addressed through isolated national actions.
The common threats facing our region are numerous and growing. We are witnessing dramatic changes in snowfall patterns and receding glaciers, with permafrost thaw adding new dimensions. Monsoon patterns that have historically defined our agricultural rhythms, are becoming increasingly erratic. Surface and groundwater availability has become more uncertain across the region.
The regional nature of climate impacts extends beyond immediate environmental effects. The migration patterns of the Rohingya to Karachi or the spread of epidemics like polio from Afghanistan have cross-border implications and demonstrated how environmental challenges can rapidly transform into regional crises requiring globally coordinated responses.
Understanding the nature of these non-traditional security threats is crucial. They are neither purely domestic nor entirely interstate issues. The global climate discourse has often overshadowed our regional and domestic conversations, sometimes at the cost of local solutions and regional approaches. These challenges need not result in zero-sum outcomes but can, instead, present opportunities for win-win solutions that benefit all participating nations.
This is particularly significant because the climate crisis poses non-traditional security threats that cannot be addressed through conventional security approaches.
Traditional knowledge often transcends our geographical borders. Farmers across the region from Chitral to Tamil Nadu still rely on shared traditional methods to predict weather patterns. The catastrophic floods of 2022 in Pakistan demonstrated this interconnectedness vividly. As the Indus river swelled beyond its banks, the ensuing disaster highlighted how changes in upstream glacial melt and rainfall patterns affect communities downstream.
Similarly, when farmers in Indian Punjab light post-harvest fires, the resulting smog affects air quality, depending on wind patterns and atmospheric dispersion over the distance, and spreads across the region —Lahore, Karachi, Lucknow and parts of Bihar were all affected.
Addressing these challenges require complex, prolonged and collaborated approaches. It demands ‘intelligence’ — the engagement of the knowledge economy and diverse stakeholders. This necessitates the integration of local knowledge with global finance, not the other way around.
The key to such shared challenges lies in prioritising local knowledge while leveraging international resources. Rising sea levels are threatening the sub-continent’s coastline from Khulna and Cox’s Bazar to Odisha and Mumbai to Thatta and Badin; the solutions must come from communities that have lived there for generations.
Climate events increasingly shape regional trade patterns in South Asia. Pakistan’s emergency imports of vegetables from India during extreme weather-driven shortages demonstrate the immediate need is for climate-resilient regional economic policies that facilitate timely trade responses during weather-induced scarcities. It is estimated that regional trade could boost Pakistan’s shrinking GDP by one per cent.
The media plays a crucial role in fostering this regional understanding. Climate change is fundamentally a development issue, and readers need to understand its governance, political economy, and implications for their communities. While coverage of disasters remains important, people increasingly seek deeper, more nuanced coverage of embedded climate governance for national development policies that connect climate resilience with daily lives and equitable development.
People want to know how communities in Chennai are managing water scarcity, how Ahmadabad has addressed urban heat islands, and how Dhaka or Mumbai is protecting vulnerable populations from floods. From the tea gardens of Assam to the mango orchards of Multan, from the fishing communities of Kerala to the mountain farmers of Swat, climate change affects us all. Our response must reflect this shared reality.
There is growing interest across the region in innovative responses. Communities across the region are developing solutions that others can learn from. In several countries, the governments are encouraging locally led adaptation to reduce vulnerabilities. Pakistan, however, has still to develop and resource local governments to promote locally led adaptation for resilience. This presents an opportunity for media to facilitate regional learning through syndicated columns, regular solution spotlights and regional roundups.
The message from Dawn’s conference was clear: the success of our response to the climate crisis will depend not just on individual national actions, but on our ability to work together as a region, learning from each other’s experiences, and building on our shared heritage of resilience and adaptation.
The writer is a climate change and sustainable development expert who participated in Dawn’s recent Breathe Pakistan conference in Islamabad. The column is based on discussions at the conference.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2025
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Khurram Hussain // DAWN: 13 February 2025
WHEN a political party decides that actively causing damage to the economy will somehow advance its interests, it needs to be urged to undertake a rethink. Such a strategy is most perfectly described by the saying about burning a country down in order to ‘rule over the ashes’.
The PTI has adopted this strategy. Back in August 2022, we saw them try to scuttle an IMF programme at a critical juncture. The country was precariously perched on the very edge of default in those days, with the energy supply chain nearing breaking point as the foreign exchange reserves had plummeted to a level that could not finance even one month’s worth of import.
A few weeks more and the beginnings of total shutdown of our society’s vital functions would have commenced. A country the size of Pakistan should never allow itself to come this close to the edge of catastrophe.
But there we were. And right when all the gruelling decisions that were required in order to win a rescue package from the IMF had finally been made and the Executive Board was ready to consider Pakistan’s case, the PTI made an attempt to scuttle the whole thing by having the then finance minister of KP, Taimur Jhagra, write a letter directly to the IMF’s resident representative in Pakistan announcing his province would not be abiding by a commitment to keep its provincial surplus within the limits stipulated by the Fund programme.
The attempt proved futile. The Fund recognised it for what it was and ignored Jhagra’s letter. But the intention had been revealed. The party was willing to use its leverage in the negotiations with the Fund programme to advance its political aims, even if doing so meant possibly pushing the entire country into a potentially catastrophic default.
However, that gambit produced a powerful reaction, not only from the government (which booked former federal finance minister Shaukat Tarin in a sedition case over his alleged involvement in instigating the whole affair) but from the general public as well. Nobody wanted to see the country burn, no matter how strong the grievance prompting the actions.
The party learned a lesson from that affair and since then has not withheld any required cooperation from the KP government for the purposes of the Fund programme. But today, they are trying something else, which is even more futile, and just as craven in its purpose. They have been urging overseas Pakistanis to not send remittances to the country, for example. Khan has been calling for such a boycott since early December, terming it as a ‘civil disobedience’ campaign of some sort. He has repeated the call numerous times since then, most recently a few days ago.
In addition, officials from the party have tried to scuttle the GSP-Plus status Pakistan worked so hard to get from the European Union back in 2014. And most recently, the party has written to the visiting IMF delegation evaluating the quality of the country’s governance under a monitoring regime separate from the ongoing programme.
Let’s start with this. The party has every right to call for a boycott of remittances. It also has every right to furnish its point of view to visiting IMF and EU delegations that are here to conduct a careful evaluation of the state of governance and human rights in the country. These actions do not amount to a grievous lapse of judgement that the letter of August 2022 was, since they don’t involve using governmental powers the party is entrusted with by the electorate to harm the state.
But here, the charitable view on the party’s politics ends. In calling for a boycott of remittances, for example, the party quotes Khan as saying people should not send their money “to the regime” while human rights are being violated and questions about the veracity of the 2024 election have not been answered.
However, literally nobody sends remittances to ‘the regime’. They send remittances to their families so the latter can pay their bills. This is one reason why despite repeated calls by the party and from Khan directly, remittances only increased in the month of January (year-on-year). Asking people to stop these is a little like asking them to not pay their utility bills, something Khan urged people to do back in the days of the dharna. That call failed, too.
Likewise, the IMF is not here to evaluate the state of the government’s legitimacy or the quantum of repression unleashed by the government. Those hoping that the Fund delegation’s visit with the chief justice has something to do with the state of domestic politics are in for another disappointment, much like the one that the remittance data from January brought. The Fund’s own Executive Board decided back in 2018 to expand monitoring of governance frameworks of member countries, but added that this would only be to the extent of its impact on macroeconomic stability.
In assessing the state of rule of law, for example, the board said the analysis should focus on “those aspects that are critical to economic performance” and laid special emphasis on “the protection of property and contractual rights”. In assessing corruption and governance overall, the board said the focus should be on determining whether any vulnerabilities are “sufficiently severe to significantly affect prospective or present balance-of-payments and domestic stability”.
The Fund will note that the balance-of-payments is improving, and domestic stability is returning. With these observations, the PTI’s wish that their grievances should be factored into the IMF’s assessment will be dashed again, much like the hopes that writing that letter would cause the Fund to pull away from Pakistan. The party needs to realise that it is pursuing a losing strategy, and that lurching from one vain hope of foreign intervention on their behalf to another is not going to get their leader out of jail, much less their people back in power.
The writer is a business and economy journalist.
khurram.husain@gmail.com
X: @khurramhusain
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2025
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DAWN EDITORIAL // 13 February 2025
DONALD Trump has reiterated his horrifying plan to take over Gaza and permanently displace its Palestinian residents. In a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II at the White House, the US president signalled his intent to push ahead with the scheme despite global condemnation.
“We’re going to take it. We’re going to hold it, we’re going to cherish it,” Mr Trump declared, making it abundantly clear that he views Gaza not as the homeland of 2.2m Palestinians, but as a piece of real estate to be seized and repurposed.
This latest pronouncement only reinforces the fears of those who see the plan as a blueprint for ethnic cleansing. The proposed mass displacement of Gazans amounts to a grave violation of international law.
That Benjamin Netanyahu supports this scheme should surprise no one: the Israeli PM has already made clear his vision for a ‘Greater Israel’, which would see Palestinian territories effectively erased. His map of a ‘New Middle East’, proudly displayed at the UN last year confirms his expansionist ambitions.
The reaction from the Arab world has been swift. King Abdullah, facing immense US pressure, has refused to endorse the plan. Egypt has rejected any moves that would force Palestinians onto its soil, while Saudi Arabia has called the proposal an “unacceptable violation of Palestinian rights”.
The Arab League, too, has opposed Mr Trump’s reckless vision. Yet, despite this overwhelming backlash, the Israeli PM and US president remain undeterred. Mr Netanyahu has termed the plan “remarkable”, while Mr Trump has threatened to cut aid to Jordan if it refuses to absorb Palestinian refugees. Washington’s coercive tactics to strong-arm its allies into supporting an apartheid-like restructuring of the region betray its moral bankruptcy.
Mr Trump’s plan will not bring peace; it will bring further devastation, radicalism, and instability. The mass expulsion of Palestinians will not end the conflict — it will ensure its perpetual escalation.
This latest move by the Trump administration also threatens the fragile ceasefire in Gaza, as Palestinian groups see it as yet another attempt to erase their presence from their land. Hamas, for example, has already warned that it will not resume hostage releases under the current conditions.
With tensions already at a breaking point, the dangerous Trump scheme has only deepened uncertainty and turmoil in the region.
The Trump-Netanyahu scheme is not just infeasible — it is a moral abomination. The international community must not only reject it outright but also ensure that those who promote such inhumanity are held accountable. The world cannot afford to stand by as such blatant violations of human rights unfold. This is Palestinian land. It is not for sale, and its people will not be erased.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2025
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GENEVA: Bangladesh’s former government was behind systematic attacks and killings of protesters as it tried to hold onto power last year, the UN said on Wednesday, warning that the abuses could amount to “crimes against humanity”.
Before prime minister Sheikh Hasina was toppled in a student-led revolution last August, her government cracked down on protesters and others, including by “hundreds of extrajudicial killings”, the United Nations said.
The UN rights office (OHCHR) said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that the crimes against humanity of murder, torture, imprisonment and infliction of other inhumane acts have taken place”.
These alleged crimes committed by the government, along with violent elements of Hasina’s Awami League party and the Bangladeshi security and intelligence services, were part of “a widespread and systematic attack against protesters and other civilians”, OHCHR’s report into the violence said.
Hasina, 77, who fled into exile in neighbouring India, has already defied an arrest warrant to face trial in Bangladesh for crimes against humanity. Asked about Hasina’s personal culpability, UN rights chief Volker Turk told reporters that his office “found reasonable grounds to believe that indeed the top echelons of the previous government were aware, and in fact were involved in… very serious violations”.
Up to 1,400 killed
Bangladesh’s interim leader Mohammed Yunus, who had asked the UN rights office to launch its fact-finding mission, welcomed the report, insisting that he wanted to transform Bangladesh “into a country in which all its people can live in security and dignity”.
The UN investigation examined events in Bangladesh between July 1 and August 15 last year, relying on hundreds of interviews with victims, witnesses and others, and on photos, videos and other documents. The team determined that security forces had supported Hasina’s government throughout the unrest, which began as protests against civil service job quotas and then escalated into wider calls for her to stand down.
OHCHR estimated that “as many as 1,400 people may have been killed” over the 45-day period, the vast majority of them “shot by Bangladesh’s security forces”. Children made up 12 to 13 percent of those killed, it said. The overall death toll given is far higher than the most recent estimate by Bangladesh’s interim government of 834 people killed.
‘Rampant state violence’
“The brutal response was a calculated and well-coordinated strategy by the former government to hold onto power in the face of mass opposition,” Turk said.
He pointed to findings of “hundreds of extrajudicial killings, extensive arbitrary arrest and detention and torture and ill treatment”, decrying “a disturbing picture of rampant state violence and targeted killings”.
The rights office also found indications of widespread gender-based violence and the abuse and killing of children. On the other side, the report highlighted “lynchings and other serious retaliatory violence” against police and Awami league officials or supporters. Bangladeshi rights group Odhikar said that a dozen people had died in detention since Hasina’s ousting. Asked about these cases, Turk said his office had only examined the situation up to mid-August.
Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2025
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More than 350 rabbis and dozens of Jewish creatives and activists have signed a full-page ad in The New York Times condemning Trump’s proposal for the forced removal of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera reports.
The ad features signatories from diverse Jewish denominations and notable figures such as playwright Tony Kushner, comedian and actor Ilana Glazer and Oscar-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix.
“Trump has now called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza. Jewish people say NO to ethnic cleansing!” it said.
The signatories emphasised their moral opposition to any plan that would displace Palestinians, drawing on historical parallels and ethical imperatives. Cody Edgerly, director of the In Our Name Campaign, underscored the ad’s timing.
“Our message to Palestinians is that you are not alone, our attention has not wavered and we are committed to fighting with every breath we have to stop ethnic cleansing in Gaza,” he said.
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