This year Jacobabad lurched from enormous rainstorms in August to record heatwaves in May that drowned crops.
The floods caused tens of thousands of people to evacuate to temporary camps and the houses of relatives, forcing them to question the future of farm employment.
If someone could help us get out of here, we would migrate to the cities and start working as manual labourers, said Buksh, whose mud-brick home was inundated along with much of the nearby fields.
Poor infrastructure had long plagued Jacobabad and other neighbouring communities, even before the devastation.
The majority of the district’s million-plus residents, who work as itinerant farm labourers for major landowners, make a daily pay tending crops.
Their way of life has always been unstable due to poverty, debt, and the unequal distribution of land, but the growth of extreme weather events linked to climate change has made the situation much more hazardous.
The crops this year were first burnt by temperatures reaching 51 degrees Celsius (124 degrees Fahrenheit) in May, then soaked by monsoon rains that affected a third of the nation—a scale never seen in Pakistan.
More over 40% of the labour force in Pakistan is employed in the agriculture industry, with women making up the majority of this workforce.
Jan Odhano, a community NGO worker who has supplied emergency aid to flood and heatwave victims, said the “twin tragedies” left farm workers in need of a way out.
They believe it is simpler to find employment in large cities. In the factories, males can work, “He added that women had access to a wider variety of employment options in his statement to AFP.
Tens of thousands of flood victims in southern Sindh province have been registered in relief camps, and many more have sought shelter in family members’ or rental properties’ houses.
According to Nausheen H. Anwar, an urban planning expert in Hyderabad, some people are anticipated to leave their rural homes and livelihoods behind, adding pressure to already overcrowded cities that are dealing with a protracted “serious crisis of urban governance”.
She stated of migration brought on by climate change, “We are not prepared for what is going to happen. These flows will inevitably occur.
For newly arrived poor people, the quality of life in the southern megacity of more than 25 million people is not much better.
The capital of Pakistan’s economy is plagued by shoddy road maintenance, broken drainage and sewerage systems, gang-controlled water distribution, electrical shortages, and subpar housing.
Migrants frequently work as daily wage labourers or street sellers while living in shanty settlements.
Anwar stated, “We really need to focus more on cities and their governing structures. Urban and rural areas are linked and both have importance.
Pakistan’s economy was in trouble even before the flood, with high inflation, a falling rupee, and declining foreign exchange reserves.
The government and campaigners are increasingly urging wealthier, more industrialised countries with bigger carbon footprints to forgive Pakistan’s debt as a kind of climate justice.
A UN session scheduled for next month is anticipated to be dominated by calls for the biggest emitters to bear financial responsibility for the climate turmoil affecting developing countries.
Pakistan, the fifth most populated nation in the world, is at the forefront of climate change despite producing only 0.8% of global emissions.
According to studies, the heatwaves are now hotter, earlier, and more frequent as a result of climate change.
This year’s extreme weather reduced human output, killed cattle, destroyed three million tonnes of wheat harvests, and caused forest fires.
9.4 million acres of crops and orchards were destroyed by the monsoon, which was also much heavier than typical.
Climate scientist Fahad Saeed stated that the ministry of climate change “should be as significant as the foreign ministry or the finance ministry.”
In addition to urgent help, the nation requires technical assistance, green energy investments, and early warning systems to get ready for the next cycle of catastrophic weather occurrences.
It’s “extremely difficult to know where to start from” in locations like Jacobabad where there are numerous climatic disasters, he said.
A bottom-up strategy that includes farmers and the underprivileged in policymaking is necessary to address climate inequity and increase resilience, Saeed continued.
Noor Muhammad, 10, who lives in Jacobabad, battled sweltering conditions to go to school while observing others pass out in rooms without air conditioning or cold water.
Only a few months later, he and his family looked for shelter in the same structure that had been transformed to aid flood victims.
