Pakistan suffered climate-induced losses worth $29bn: World Bank

Weather- and climate-related disasters have affected over 75 million Pakistanis in the past three decades, with estimated economic losses of over $29 billion, or roughly $1billion a year, latest World Bank report estimated. The projected temperature extremes will progressively amplify the negative impacts on human health, livelihoods, and ecosystems that Pakistan is already experiencing, said the report titled “From Swimming in Sand to High and Sustainable Growth: A Roadmap to Reduce Distortions in the Allocation of Resources and Talent in the Pakistani Economy”. The report explained Pakistan’s climate has been changing in recent decades and the country faced rates of warming that are considerably above the global average. From 1999 to 2002, droughts in Sindh and Balochistan provinces killed two million livestock and required emergency relief to provide drinking water and food to farming communities. Even minimal changes in precipitation patterns over prolonged periods can alter Pakistan’s food production by placing greater pressure on the water resources that the country’s irrigation network depends on.