The countries that are acting today like the champions of the climate change cause are, in fact, the biggest contributors to pollution which eventually caused the disaster that the world is facing today. The countries participating in the 27th Conference of the Parties (COP27) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) tend to ignore the crimes against climate being committed by certain countries by conveniently looking the other way.
Take, for instance, what Israel is doing in the occupied territories. It has uprooted millions of olive trees in the occupied lands which the Western media chose, and continues to choose, to ignore perhaps because it cannot understand the gravity of the crime. The olive tree is synonymous with Palestine. The trees in Al Walaja village are believed to be a few thousand years old, but are being threatened by the Jewish settlers.
The occupiers have destroyed water resources, poisoned water wells, ruined farm crops, and killed farm animals. Sewage collected from the so-called civilised white settlers is dumped into Arab neighbourhoods, causing and spreading diseases. The list of climate crimes is endless in the region.
The wall built by the occupiers damages trees, plants and natural reserves. Yet millions of dollars from the taxpayers’ money in the Western countries are poured into the settler colonies, many of whom are members of COP27, to keep the occupation and the agenda of the destruction of Palestine alive.
Needless to say, the occupiers of Palestine have regularly bombed Palestinian lands on one pretext or another, destroying infrastructure, and damaging water and electricity lines. Israel has even used white phosphorus bombs on Palestinian populations, adding to the climate change phenomenon, although such bombs are not meant to be used on civilian populations.
Despite all this, the members of COP27 have continued to supply weapons of mass destruction to Israel and ignore the damage it is causing in the Arabian peninsula that does not belong to it. It is strange that when the damage to the environment is done by the ‘whites’, as in the case of Israel, it is ignored. When it is done by, say, China, all hell breaks loose.
The self-proclaimed ‘civilised’ world should stop haranguing the rest of the world about climate change because no one believes their rants and chants. If COP27 is really serious, it should hold its own members accountable for the immense damage done to the environment, particularly, but not exclusively, in the Arabian peninsula.
The Arabs — Palestinians, to be more specific — know their land better and can still bring life back in the desert and save the climate. Who is holding them back from doing that? Of course, the ‘civilised’ world.
ANGABEEN AHMAD
KARACHI
