Nowhere to Go: Inflation and global warming are impacting livelihoods around the world
Business
The lethal combination is complicating the affairs for crisis-hit countries like Pakistan
LAHORE (Raja Arsalan Khan) – The number of Chinese travelling abroad to spend their holidays is still well below the pre-pandemic level as people want to save their money amid the rising cost of living.
And in France, consumers are buying fewer personal hygiene and household products, sacrificing tampons and laundry detergent as prices of products made by big brands like P&G and Unilever surge – a news with which we in Pakistan can easily relate to.
Read more: Inflation is changing habits including eating less, reduced focus on personal hygiene
On the other hand, a severe drought in Brazil has threatened the livelihood people living in the Amazon region – a product of global warming and El Nino.
Separately, Australian Treasure Jim Chalmers warned on Tuesday that the crop yields in Australia could be 4 per cent below current levels by 2063, reducing the country's economic output by A$1.8 billion ($1.2bn) a year, unless action is taken to mitigate the impact of climate change.
The two set of news are seemingly not related at least in the case of Pakistan. But they are. Both of them are about the impact on people’s livelihood and the resultant effects across the world. Many of these permanent or at least long-term in their nature.
CHINESE AREN’T GOING TO SPEND ABROAD
Reuters says a record number of Chinese are choosing to travel at home this Golden Week holiday, potentially boosting domestic consumption but disappointing travel agents who have been waiting for big-spending tourists to go back abroad since the pandemic ended.
China celebrates the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day from Friday to Oct 6 in the longest public holiday this year.
The break traditionally sees an overseas exodus of middle-class Chinese as well as bumper domestic travel, with millions of people, mostly labourers and factory workers, returning to their home villages.
Read more: Why China not rushing to fix ailing economy? Is it because of Xi's focus on national security?
But as the economy struggles to recover after the pandemic, previous holidays this year have disappointed in terms of spending per person, as a weak job market and low incomes hurt consumer spending.
More Chinese are still reluctant to spend on nice-to-haves such as overseas holidays, but how much they do spend domestically during this holiday will be a key gauge of consumer appetite, a crucial component for the long-term growth potential of the world's second-largest economy.
While the data points towards a resurgence in domestic tourism, the outbound market has only recovered to about 60 per cent of its pre-pandemic levels.
Cost is a major deciding factor, as the average price of group travel tours from China is up to 30pc higher than before the pandemic, partly because airlines have yet to resume their pre-COVID schedules.
And it will impact on the tourism industry in the potential destinations and thus economies of those countries as the many cities and regions around the world have been a beneficiary of the high number of Chinese tourists.
BRAZIL DROUGHT
Brazil's government is preparing a task force to provide emergency assistance to inhabitants in the Amazon region hit by a severe drought that has impacted the rivers that are their life support, Environment Minister Marina Silva said, according to Reuters.
Low river levels and hotter waters have killed masses of fish seen floating on river surfaces, contaminating the drinking water, she said.
Read more: Cyclone kills at least 21 in southern Brazil, officials
Some 111,000 people have been affected in a region where a much of the population's protein comes from fishing, which will be suspended for some time, she added.
The civil defense agency warned that the drought could eventually impact up to 500,000 people in the Amazon.
The drought in the Amazon, like the flooding in the south of Brazil, results from the El Niño phenomenon, which warms the surface water in the Pacific Ocean. This year the impact has been greater than normal, weather experts say.
PAKISTAN
Everyone in the country is feeling the heat from inflation and resultant reduced purchasing power. They also feel the heat thanks to the rising temperature and experience the much heavier downpours nowadays.
But the effects of extreme weather events are of wide range. The food prices are already very high. But the damage caused by global warming to crops would mean less production and even more increase in rates as demand doesn’t shrunk.
Farmers in Pakistan are already finding it difficult to adjust crop pattern amid the change in climate. It is going worsen only in the coming years.
It was warned earlier that policymakers had a potent new economic hurricane triggered by El Nino coming their way after struggling to cope with an inflation storm caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
Statecraft is a complicated affair as one has to deal with a plethora of issues simultaneously amid limited resources. At the same time, both global warming and inflation are global issues.
The entire world is facing the consequences of production cut introduced by Saudi Arabia and Russia in the shape of surging oil prices while the Ukraine war disrupted the grain supply and increased the food prices in the countries far away.
Meanwhile, the developing and poor nations in South America, Africa and Asia are worst affected by the fossil emissions by the developed countries as well as China and India.
While the government can and should plan and implement measures to protect the people from the global warming and inflation, no single country could claim to resolve the same without any external direct or indirect assistance.
Being a responsible and effective member of the international community is the way forward if we want to see Pakistan tackle the emerging challenges successfully as investment and trade are only the solutions we have for expanding and adjusting our economic according to the new realities.
