When Sherry Rehman speaks, it seems like the end of the world.
Perhaps that’s because Pakistan — where she serves as climate change minister — has a front-row seat to the cascading global warming catastrophe.
In the north, rapid glacier melt triggers flash floods; in the south, savage heat exceeds 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit); The west is riddled with wildfires and the eastern city of Lahore is shrouded in suffocating perpetual smog.
“It’s apocalyptic,” the 61-year-old former diplomat told AFP.
She was appointed minister after a turbulent change of government in April, which coincided with the onslaught of a nationwide heatwave.
“If you’re facing an apocalypse… haven’t you been watching Hollywood movies? You have to face her head on.”
– ‘Perfect Storm’ –
Pakistan is responsible for less than 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but ranks eighth in an index of nations most exposed to extreme weather events, compiled by the NGO Germanwatch.
In doing so, the country of 220 million people must save its own climate disasters while encouraging larger polluters to turn the tide.
Rehman has launched a rhetorical offensive, berating the great and good on global forums with unabashed descriptions of imminent doomsday.
She framed the argument in the long arc of history: Pakistan, once part of the British Empire, broke free only to be gripped by “climate colonialism”.
“There has been so much climate denial internationally, with the big polluters not wanting to break their bad habits or pay the price to go green,” she said.
“We’re told, ‘There’s a perfect storm at your neck of the forest, and you just have to do this alone,’ which is absolutely not possible.”
“I don’t even feel empathy very often,” added Rehman, who served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2011 to 2013.
To make matters worse, Pakistan is in an economic downturn with runaway inflation, a debt crisis and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
Even Rehman’s home in the remote capital, Islamabad, hums with the sound of a gasoline generator. Heat waves have exacerbated an energy deficit, and blackouts are on the rise.
Pakistanis could be forgiven for having more mundane worries than the end of days.
“Communicating a science-based crisis in our lives that probably originated very far from our neck of the forest is very difficult to explain,” she said.
“We have yet to speak in easily digestible terms.
“I have to say, ‘That’s why you can breathe better. That’s why you can have an environment that doesn’t overheat. That’s why your water is drinkable’.”
– Fight against climate change and sexism –
Rehman’s role as a fortuneteller of uncomfortable truths is complicated in deeply patriarchal Pakistan.
According to data from the World Bank, the number of women parliamentarians has leveled off at around 20 percent over the past two decades.
Benazir Bhutto, the country’s only female prime minister – and of Rehman’s Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) – was assassinated in 2007, an assassination that has deeply struck the national psyche and which remains unsolved.
A pastel portrait of Bhutto holds pride of place in Rehman’s library, even more prominent than a pop art print of Pakistan’s founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah.
In front of the door, a nude female bust is prominently placed – in a country where women’s bodies are strictly controlled by strict rules of modesty.
“There’s always a reaction to women taking power and speaking up, too,” Rehman said.
“It was two steps forward, one step back.”
In public appearances, Rehman exudes uncompromising energy. Male co-panelists who take over the microphone are informed of their transgressions; those who break off their answers are similarly punished.
“I tell myself, ‘If men compete with you, you’re in a good place,'” she said. “I don’t mince my words and I see no reason to.”
“We pay the daily price of dealing with constant backlash and with constant fumbling and sophistry about gender.”
It’s not her “daily challenge,” she said, but there is a stark overlap in the interest of fighting sexism and global warming.
“As climate change unleashes its fury, women are on the front lines,” she said, returning to the fire and brimstone theme.
“It is the women who feed the soil, the crops and the water.”
#Pakistani #climate #catastrophe #Sherry #Rehman
