Pakistan Underwater: Debt & Climate Justice Now

Pakistan is drowning. Following the devastating floods starting in June 2022, roughly a third of Pakistan is underwater, affecting upwards of 33 million people and causing an estimated $30bn in damages. These are the socialized costs borne by the Global South of a world system of expropriation to the benefit of fossil fuel, mining, and other extractive corporations headquartered in the Global North.

Unfortunately, Pakistan is not alone, and their demands are part of a growing global climate justice movement which seeks to hold the Global North and corporations accountable for the crisis that they created. But, in addition to financial support to countries suffering the impacts of the climate crisis, we have to undo a global economic system that keeps them down, that works to keep countries in debt, and that forces them to adopt austerity measures that are fundamentally incompatible with the kind of societal investments needed to respond and adapt to climate change.

Join the DSA International Committee and guest speakers Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (author of Reconsidering Reparations), Ammar Ali Jan (Haqooq-e-Khalq Party, Pakistan), Asad Rehman (Director of War on Want), and Bhumika Muchhala (Senior Advisory, Third World Network) to learn about the devastating situation in Pakistan and how Pakistan’s demands are linked to movements for debt and climate justice, and what truly transformative reparations should look like.