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Essay by Eric Worrall
According to Wikipedia, since 1952 Pakistan has received 22 IMF bailouts, substantially funded by the USA. But apparently the USA is still liable for climate reparations.
Pakistan floods revive a debate: Should U.S. pay for climate disasters?
Even as Pakistan turns to donors around the world asking aid to cope with deadly and costly flooding, many politicians and activists demand the United States and others compensate poor nations for global warming damages
By Shannon Osaka
August 29, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. EDTSince mid-June, torrential rain has changed the landscape of Pakistan, submerging villages and fields, destroying homes and killing at least 1,000 people. But if the human toll is catastrophic, the financial toll is almost unimaginable: According to Pakistan’s finance minister, the damage so far will likely exceed $10 billion, or a whopping 4 percent of the country’s annual gross domestic product.
“Pakistan was already facing the disastrous effects of climate change,” Sherry Rehman, Pakistan’s minister of climate change, said at a news conference on Thursday. “Now the most devastating monsoon rains in a decade are causing incessant destruction across the country.”
But even as Pakistan turns to donors around the world asking for aid, there is one thing that the country will almost certainly not receive: Compensation from the countries — including the United States — thatare most responsible for planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.
…
One of the key issues is liability. U.S. delegates fear that if a formal loss-and-damage fund is created, the United States could open itself up to litigation from poorer countries. “We always remain thoughtful about the issue of liability,” John F. Kerry, the U.S. international climate envoy, said during the Glasgow summit.
…
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/29/pakistan-floods-climate-change/
On the bright side it is good to read that for once John Kerry resisted handing over large sums of US taxpayer’s money.
But the question – should Pakistan receive climate change aid, or any further aid?
One of the main reasons Pakistan is so bankrupt, aside from their eyewatering corruption, is they spend crazy amounts of money funding a large military and a nuclear weapons programme.
They also likely give large sums to America’s enemies. Pakistan’a security service helped set up the Taliban, but according to some sources Pakistan continues to maintain high level links. The Taliban might have begun as a US supported resistance movement against Soviet occupation of Afghanistan – but in my opinion the Taliban have long outlived their value to Western interests.
Any international aid money Pakistan receives, regardless of what excuse is given for handing over the cash, there is a real risk most of it will be stolen, and much of the remainder will be split between funding their excessive military, and supporting America’s enemies. Very little if any, in my opinion, would reach the destitute people who could actually use some help.
I think most of us can think of better uses for US taxpayer’s money, than funding Pakistans’s corrupt elites, and funding their hostile geopolitical games.
If despite this you still want to help, and believe even if only pennies in the dollar get through it is still worth sending aid to Pakistan flood victims, I recommend you read African economic expert James Shikwati’s Der Spiegel interview “For God’s Sake, Please Stop the Aid!“. The corrupt kleptocrats who are the real principals of ordinary people’s suffering, having wrecked their own nation’s economy, utterly depend on outside aid money to survive.
Sending money for whatever reason just perpetuates the misery, and impedes the development of a more functional, responsive Pakistani government. In my opinion, the suffering of ordinary people is a fundraising theatrical prop to the people who currently run Pakistan. None of the previous 22 IMF bailouts and who knows what other handouts helped improve the lives of ordinary Pakistanis. Why would yet another handout, whether it be a climate reparation or flood relief or another IMF bailout, produce a different outcome to all the previous handouts?
There is nothing whatever stopping Washington post readers from putting their hands in their pockets and making donations to Pakistan. I wonder how many have bothered? He is after all so much easier to pass the buck to someone else.
“KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug. 22 —Rising floodwaters have no engulfed the second most populous province of Pakistan.
With the collapse of the last protective embankment on the Indus River in the province of Sind, the situation there has become “extremely serious,” according to Pakistan’s Finance Minister, Dr. Mubashir Hasan, who is in charge of flood‐control measures.
After overflowing an embankment near Sukkur, about 250 miles northeast of Karachi, the river inundated several towns and hundreds of villages. Preliminary reports said that at least 2 million people in the region had been made homeless.
Reports from the previously stricken and most populous province, Punjab, put the death toll there at 2,000, with many more reported missing.”
Oh wait, that was 1973.
https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/23/archives/flood-situation-in-pakistan-is-called-extremely-serious.html
“KARACHI: The devastation from Pakistan’s “worst floods in living memory” could have been contained had flood-prevention projects been put in place, experts say.
The government claims that nothing could have prevented the floods that have killed more than 1,600 people and made over a million people homeless.
“These are not the country’s worst floods,” stresses irrigation expert Idrees Rajput, also a former member of the Sindh government. “Water levels in Sindh rose to similar high floods in 1992 and 1976 but the impact was not as huge. This time, flooding has been exacerbated only due to decades of government corruption and neglect.”
Oh wait, that was 2010
https://tribune.com.pk/story/42350/these-are-not-pakistan%E2%80%99s-worst-floods
As the French would say: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
from old newspaper snips ive read this is just the usual for that area
Im sure that TROVE would have quite a lot of past records of same water n death tolls.
i do remember saying that the whinging greens were making a whip that would be used BY3rd worlders to claim compensation for imaginary climate damages
and kiribas tuvalu and a pile of others are on the bandwagon already.
some jerk(swedish I think) was on todays radio ABC saying their models….showed greenland ice was going to flood +others and woe woe to all ad nauseum once again
Sorry to steal someone’s thunder but; “Is that a fact or did you only hear it on the ABC “
Monsoon rains happen so we should pay for them. Makes sense.
CC is complete nonsense in this case. The populated areas are built on the floodplain of more than one river to take advantage of the soil brought by the floods. Thousands of farmers with shovels busily dig their trenches to alternately gain soil in the next flood, or drain floodwaters away quicker to start their crops, thereby causing more flooding downstream. This has been their agricultural method for at least a couple of thousand years, and has been highly successful judging from their population. If the government can get a bunch of CC money from stupid Western governments, they go for it.
Simple answer to the question asked by the article…NO. Hell no.
The US is not the welfare provider for the world. We have folks here who could use some help before we ever consider other nations to support.
It is an interesting year for significant floods and droughts and I remain confident there are natural explanations. Until such time as there are clearly delectable trends in floods and droughts (IPCC and others don’t find them), this is just bad weather. It doesn’t diminish the impact on poor populations with few resources to help themselves, and whose governments are more intent on their own well-being, but it won’t help those most affected to pretend this is part of some climate armageddon rather than a failure of planning and infrastructure build.
Look at the geography. Practically the entire Pakistani population lives inside of the huge floodplain of the Indus River and it’s tributaries. It has always flooded and always will flood. If they would but recognize this and act accordingly, their cities, towns and farms should be in a long-term public works program aimed at water supply and flood control. Meanwhile, their population has grown 75% since 2000. However, their leadership has apparently chosen a different path. Don’t blame the U.S. or anyone else for problems of their own making.
Flooding in the Indus Valley, who’d a thought.
And oh, by the way, the author of this claptrap says this about herself:
https://www.shannonosaka.com
A mindless, poorly educated idiot. She didn’t bother to spend even 10 minutes checking other sources about Pakistani geography, population and flood history before writing this stupid piece, nor did the WaPo “editors” who supposedly reviewed it before going to press. It took me less than 5 minutes on Google Earth to immediately see the real problems. This has ZERO to do with climate change.
Lies, lies, lies. Nothing more.
Since the US government is now comfortable with literally printing dollars by the trillion, why not?
No. We, the USA, should not pay for anyone’s climate problems. All of the climate models are fake.
It’s their own deforestation that’s contributed to these floods. They are the second worst in the world (or best I suppose, depending how you look at it).
They’ve been cutting down trees on an industrial scale for years. This from 2010:
https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-floods-aggravated-by-deforestation-and-other-ecological-mistakes/a-5966095
The Washington Post should move to Pakistan.