Pakistan Floods Leave Cotton Workers' Dreams in Tatters

Climate Signals Summary: The catastrophic flooding that killed more than 1,700 people across Pakistan this summer — submerging huge swaths of the country and setting off a crisis of waterborne disease — has devastated the country’s cotton farmers and imperiled the textile industry, Context reports. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, made the devastating floods more likely. The floods destroyed one-third of Pakistan's cotton crop, creating financial peril for farmers and the hundreds of thousands who work in cotton mills and other parts of the industry — domestically-grown cotton sold to the textile industry accounts for 60% of Pakistan's export earnings. "We were dreaming of earning well this time," Omar Daraz of Hasanabad, told Context. "But the rains and floods shattered all those dreams."

Full Story: (Context)

Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves

To receive climate stories like this in your inbox daily click here to sign up for the Hot News Newsletter from Climate Nexus: 

https://newsletter.climatenexus.org/hot-news-sign-up