Environmental Wake-Up Call Looming in Pakistan

(April 22) -- For the past month, Ismail Siddiqui has watched disaster hanging over him.

"It's one thing to see everything you own destroyed in an earthquake," the 45-year-old father of four tells AOL News. "But to wake up every morning not knowing whether today will be the end. ... It's driving me crazy."

What Siddiqui is watching is an artificial dam created by a massive landslide in Pakistan's northern Hunza Valley in January.

His house is situated just downstream from the dam, along the banks of the Hunza River. Water has been collecting behind the massive pile of rock debris for months, creating a 7.5-mile-long lake that continues to rise by as much as a foot a day. Some scientists have warned that if the dam breaks, it could send a wall of water 130 feet high racing down the valley, threatening the lives of at least 45,000 inhabitants -- including Siddiqui and his family.

The looming disaster could easily be the symbol for global warming in this country.

Even as Pakistan commemorates Earth Day with sweeping promises to tackle environmental issues, climate change is already being keenly felt in Hunza. The latest in a series of unusually warm winters has contributed to the lake's growth, swelling it with water from rapidly melting glaciers.

"This is something Pakistan should be extremely worried about," says Kenneth Hewitt, professor emeritus in the geography and environmental studies department at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and an expert on Pakistan's northern geography. "One of the vulnerable aspects of high-altitude regions is permafrost. Areas like Hunza are more susceptible to melting permafrost because of global warming, which raises the danger of landslides significantly."

Over the past 10 years, he has observed four major landslides in the region and, as winter temperatures continue to rise, he expects more. And while there is not enough data on the Hunza landslide to blame it exclusively on warming temperatures, Hewitt says, "it could well be a contributing factor."

If you speak to Pakistani politicians, however, they'll say Pakistan isn't to blame for global warming. Officials at the Environment Ministry refuse to talk about it, except to restate the popular belief that Pakistan is responsible only for trace amounts of the world's carbon dioxide emissions compared with countries like India and China.

But a closer look at the numbers reveals some startling facts.

In 2006, Pakistan ranked 31st in the world in total carbon dioxide emissions, according to data from the U.N. Millennium Development Goals Indicators. That places it among ignoble company, as the top 35 countries in this category are responsible for 90 percent of the word's CO2 emissions.

More disturbing, however, is the rate at which Pakistan's emissions are rising: Compared with its Brobdingnagian neighbor, India, whose skyrocketing emissions have draw the brunt of environmentalists' criticism, Pakistan has received scant attention in terms of its growing role as a global polluter.

Yet the statistics tell a dirty tale: According to the same U.N. data, Pakistan's gross domestic product growth rate between 1990 and 2006 has matched that of India, that much-heralded rising economic star. And along with a blooming GDP, Pakistan's CO2 emissions over the same time period have shot up by more than 200 percent -- also matching India's rate.

In absolute terms, then, Pakistan may be a lightweight polluter, but statistically -- and in the all-important trend category -- it ranks up there with the heavyweights.

Yet the issue receives little or no attention inside Pakistan, or internationally. "It's not really on anyone's radar," says Huma Khan, a 19-year-old environmental activist in Islamabad. "As far as I know, no one is raising awareness about Pakistan's role in global warming."

Indeed, the bulk of Pakistan's green movement remains focused on topical issues: anti-litter and tree planting campaigns, for example.

It's a starting point, says Khan. "The environment is not the main priority of people in Pakistan," she says. "There are so many other problems here. And Pakistanis still don't have a sense of civic duty. There is a total lack of awareness about how our actions impact the environment."

But in the Hunza Valley, the impact could be measured in terms of lives lost and livelihoods destroyed, as Hewitt warns there is a real danger the artificial dam could collapse. "We're already seeing seepage in parts of it," he says. "That indicates instability."

While Pakistan's government has taken virtually no action, insisting that the dam is stable, Siddiqui is not taking any chances: He will move his family out of the region and plans never to come back, despite his love for what has been described as Pakistan's Shangri-La.

"This is not the first disaster to hit us," he says. "Every year we hear about something -- an earthquake, a flood. ... I don't have to be an expert to know that something is wrong. Maybe it's God's anger for what we've done to his creation, I don't know. What I do know is that the Earth is not what it used to be."