If we do not raise our voices today, history will record that industrial nations chose profit over humanity and that the rest of the world remained silent while millions perished.
- If wealthy nations have enjoyed prosperity by polluting the planet, then they must also share the burden of protecting those displaced by that very pollution. To deny this is not only immoral, it is inhumane.
Zaheer Udin Babar Junejo
I have not had a single day off since the Covid-19. As a humanitarian worker working in Pakistan, I have stood knee-deep in floodwaters, watched mothers cradle their starving children, and helped families cling to hope while everything around them was swept away. Since then, there has been no pause from record-breaking heatwaves to cloudbursts that drown entire villages overnight.
Pakistan is living inside a climate catastrophe, and yet we are told to be “resilient.” But resilience has a limit. Pakistan is not responsible for this crisis. Our contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is negligible. Yet our people suffer the harshest consequences. If not we, then who is responsible? Industrial nations who have built their wealth by burning coal, oil, and gas for centuries. They earned their pennies, and we are paying with our lives.
Each time I sit with families who have lost everything, homes, crops, livestock, loved ones, I cannot escape the truth that those responsible for this destruction must pay their climate debt. Not in hollow pledges or delayed funds, but in real rebuilding, real anticipatory action, and real support for those on the frontlines.
Communities need climate-resilient housing, early warning systems, sustainable water sources, and secure livelihoods. Humanitarian aid alone is not enough; it is a bandage on a wound that industrial greed keeps reopening.
I work in areas where people don’t find alternate but living by the graves of their ancestors, they might don’t know their lands will soon be under sea water, a landslide will sweep it away or a drought will take everything they were trying to protect for centuries. Their land may not exist in the coming decades. Coastal families already live with the ocean at their doorstep. Desert dwellers face deadly lightning storms and heat that no human body can endure. What will happen to them when survival is no longer possible? A country where differences on the basis of language, affiliation are at rise? The world must come forward building their skills, offering them Climate Visas. If wealthy nations have enjoyed prosperity by polluting the planet, then they must also share the burden of protecting those displaced by that very pollution. To deny this is not only immoral, it is inhumane.
By 2050, sea level rise alone could displace up to 800 million people worldwide. These are not faceless numbers. They are children I have met in relief camps, elderly farmers who refuse to abandon their land, and young people whose dreams are drowned along with their homes.
If we do not raise our voices today, history will record that industrial nations chose profit over humanity and that the rest of the world remained silent while millions perished.
As a humanitarian worker, I will keep doing my part, day after day, emergency after emergency. But I ask how long can we patch the wounds while others keep causing the injury? Earn a penny today or save millions of lives tomorrow. Humanity cannot afford both.
Read: Stop the Tears Before They Fall
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Zaheer Udin Babar Junejo is a Community Driven Development Specialist based in Hyderabad Sindh
