A climate story
Donal Daly
Co-Founder and CEO @ Future Planet | Accelerating ESG Performance. 6x Founder, 4x Bestselling Author, Adjunct Professor.
Aisha was a beautiful child, just eleven years old.? Her impish grin was infectious. The twinkle in her eye and beaming smile, framed by her jet-black hair, demanded your attention, and you gave it gladly. When Aisha was not in school, she left her home county of Sindh and travelled the length of Pakistan with her father. On their journeys they enjoyed the diverse topology, from the towering peaks of the Karakoram in the north to the fertile plains along the Indus River and the Arabian Sea on the southern coastline.?
Everyone loved Oliver, named by his mother after her favourite Dicken’s novel. After three girls, she said, the arrival of Oliver was definitely a twist. Every time she said that she chuckled. In Oliver’s youth he suffered from severe asthma, so his family moved out of Manhattan to Putnam County, New York. Living near Fahnestock State Park, the lush forest of oak, maple, and birch was just the healthy environment that Oliver needed. He grew to be a fit and healthy young boy, playing as goalie for his local soccer team.
Aisha died last year. Her impish grin is gone forever. She died just four days before her twelfth birthday in July 2022 when the big floods hit Pakistan. She was just one of the 1,739 people who were killed by this climate disaster. Pakistan is responsible for just?0.3 percent of cumulative global carbon dioxide emissions?and yet is bearing a terrible toll from climate change. Climate-caused disasters have a disproportionately harsh impact on the poorest countries but is caused primarily by emissions from richer nations and fossil fuels.
Oliver died recently, just a few months after the Canadian fires. Beginning in March 2023 and increasing in intensity around June, the worst wildfire season in Canadian history affected Alberta, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec. According to Oliver’s mother, the smoke from the fires seemed to settle over Putnam County for months. We are not yet sure what killed Oliver, whether it was the acute lower respiratory infection, the aggravated asthma, or the ensuing heart disease. Each of these are consequences of air pollution, which kills more Americans than guns or car accidents. In this case, climate change caused the fires and delivered the worst air pollution in New York’s history. The smoke travelled down the east coast of the US, stopping long enough in Putnam to cause the death a young boy, before continuing on to the southeast and then across the North Atlantic to Europe. Oliver’s mother is now a mere shell, an empty vessel, looking for answers.
There is now no longer any resistance to climate action in Pakistan.? Along with the 1,739 deaths, and the 8,000,000 who lost their homes, a third of the country was underwater. All the resistance was washed away. Now the immediate challenge is food availability.
We are all rushing towards a cliff.? If we don’t phase out fossil fuels immediately we are condemning billions of people to water and food shortages, and like Aisha and Oliver, many millions will die prematurely.
When you think about major injustices of history, you might recall racial segregation in the US, antisemitism and the holocaust in Europe, or the worldwide brutally and exploitation from colonialism.? These, taken together, are minor when you compare them to climate injustice, where those who are doing most damage to the planet are suffering the least. Like segregation, antisemitism, and colonialism, climate injustice is about power, greed, and exploitation.? Those who have – the rich nations, are exploiting those who have not – the poorer nations, and those impacted and killed are measured in billions. Even today two billion people don't have enough clean water to live.
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The future does not look bright.
?
Are we doomed? ?
Ask Aisha or Oliver.?
Oh no, you can’t. Aisha and Oliver are dead.
Our apathy killed them.
Ambassador of Pakistan to Ireland
1 年Eloquently narrated, Donal. In many parts of the world including my own corner of the globe, climate change is not a mere academic debate of whether it is or it is not. It is a lived experience for millions of people caught at the intersection of climate change and climate justice. Many like Aisha’s family, await a just solution.