The scale of devastation that unprecedented flooding brought to Pakistan this summer is hard to fathom. A third of the country is underwater, and more than a million homes have been damaged or destroyed. More than 1,700 people have died. About 5.7 million people are facing food shortages, and around 600,000 pregnant women require urgent access to healthcare.
We know that the rainfall contributing to this flooding was intensified by global warming — the planet has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) on average since the industrial revolution. In the parlance of the international debate over climate change, the effects of such climate-driven catastrophes are termed "loss and damage." Because the countries that suffer the most loss and damage tend to be countries that, like Pakistan, were late to industrialize and therefore are relatively blameless for the scale of climate change so far, activists and leaders in developing countries are increasingly calling on wealthy, early-industrializing nations to compensate them for what they've lost. The issue is set to take center stage at the 27th United Nations climate change conference, called COP27, which will be held in Egypt next month.
