A newborn held aloft in Pakistan sums up the sheer injustice of the climate crisis

‘Zulfikar sent us this photo from the camp in Warah, in the Sindh province, of a father holding a newborn baby aloft, hoping to carry him over the sea of waiting people so he could be seen by a doctor.’ Photograph: Zulfikar Bhutto

This summer, intense monsoon rains combined with glacial melt caused super-floods across Pakistan. We are home to the second largest number of glaciers after the polar regions and, thanks to global heating, they are melting at unprecedented, terrifying speed. This is the year the climate emergency came home to me, and this is a photo that haunts me.

The floods wiped out approximately a million livestock, decimated crops, displaced 30 to 50 million Pakistanis, destroyed thousands of kilometres of roads – and months later, the damage is still going on. Stagnant water means farmers cannot plant new crops – those who could not plant rice in October, with water in certain parts remaining thigh high, will have no harvest to reap come March.