This week marked the effectiveness of Afghanistan joining Kyoto Protocol. Signed in April, it came into effect. National Environmental Protection Agency says our country has become one step closer in the fight against climate change. According to the head of the Climate Change Institute at the agency, the air pollution and environmental issues in Afghanistan has made the country one of the most vulnerable to climate change and joining the Kyoto Protocol is the first right step in the direction to fight it. It will bring financial assistance and international support.
According to the Institute reported by DW, in the past 10 years, the average temperature has risen by 0.13 degrees. About 3,000 inhabitants die annually from respiratory diseases. According to World Health Organization statistics, the average particulate matter (PM) count is 190 - much higher than in the Chinese capital Beijing where it is 121 on average.
Other than natural vulnerabilities, Afghanistan as a war-ravaged country is more prone to even minor impacts of global warming. The dry atmosphere and small changes in temperature will bring severe impacts. The people of Afghanistan are already the victims of climate change. Long before civil war, the change in weather during the last decades affected people’s lives and livelihoods during the infamous long drought. As an agricultural country, our vast farm lands depend on rivers where water comes from Hindu Kush mountain range being melt. Small changes in global temperatures tip weather cycles to extremes of hot and cold.
The polluted environment of the capital is causing severe problems and diseases. According to a report released by the Health Department more than one hundred thousand people have been having respiration diseases. Hospitals are filled with patients of diseases that are increasing as a result of air pollution. The excessive use of electricity-producing generators has severely polluted the capital, thus lungs disease are common. The effects of decades of war weaponry makes it even worst.
Climate change is caused by an increase of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere of our earth changing its heat balance that increases temperature. The burning of fossil fuel by big and growing economies of the world has the more share of mess in global warming. Though Afghanistan is not an industrial or growing economy, but the impacts of global warming is objective. We are more prone to the threats of nature. Our farmers are already affected by the climate change.