Pakistan farmer drags government in court for climate change

By- Tarun Pratap

New Delhi: A 25-year-old law student in Lahore, Asghar Lehagiri has dragged the Pakistan government into the court for its inability to work against damage in climate change and subsequently harming local farmers.

A resident of district Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab, Asghar Lehagiri has seen the fight of his family and all the low scale farmers around him against the unpredictable weather of Pakistan.

He filed a petition in Lahore High Court demanding action from the Government to counter the climate change. He filed that the government of Pakistan was violating his fundamental rights by neglecting the impact of climate change.

His initiative seems to have worked as Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah has ordered the formation of a climate change commission to push the policies that the government promised.

Sajjad Ahmed, the joint secretary of climate change ministry said that the government has made policies, but they might not have been implemented yet.

An issue that is important to a common farmer and to the whole humanity someday might not seem to be not so important for the government.

Climate change has impacted the whole life cycle of people who are dependent on nature. The developing part of the world is facing more problems than the developed.

Countries like the US want developing countries specially China and India to cut their greenhouse gas emission, but these countries are demanding that they should be given the same chance for their development as the developed nations had.

Climate change has created huge problems, the monsoon cycle is disturbed and the direct effect of it is on the farmer. The agriculture depends on the nature and any change in nature impacts it badly.

Most of the developing countries are agricultural dependent countries. The Indian subcontinent has the seasonal agricultural cycle, Rabi and Kharif, climate changes the courses of these seasonal cycles and impacts farmers and economy.

Vidarbha area of India has witnessed many suicides of farmers. A country like India where 70 per cent of the population lives off agriculture faces the worst of any impact on nature.

Asghar Lehagiri, a young law student who belongs to farmer family has had enough. But will his effort make any difference?

People in power need to make policies and push these policies which can counter the climate change.

(With inputs from agencies)