Uber driver arrested for starting LA blaze that killed 12
A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a devastating wildfire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles ea...
Climate change has become a critical destabilizing factor in Afghanistan, worsening the country's already severe economic and social instability.
A recent study by the Afghanistan Analysts Network shows that Afghanistan loses around 550 million dollars each year under normal rainfall conditions, with losses jumping to as much as 3 billion dollars in years of extreme drought.
Despite contributing almost nothing to global carbon emissions, Afghanistan remains one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
The economic damage from climate-related disasters is staggering. The World Bank estimates that floods alone cause about 54 million dollars in annual losses, with catastrophic flooding in some years exceeding 500 million dollars in damages. Droughts are even more devastating, costing Afghanistan 280 million dollars per year on average, and up to 3 billion dollars in the worst cases. Beyond floods and droughts, Afghanistan faces frequent avalanches in the Hindu Kush mountains, which destroy lives and infrastructure, particularly in winter.
According to the World Bank’s 2017 Disaster Risk Profile, around 2 million people and over 4 billion dollars in assets, including 10,000 kilometers of roads, are at risk from such disasters. Landslides, worsened by heavy rain, deforestation, and earthquakes, threaten more than 3 million people and 6 billion dollars in infrastructure, including hundreds of schools and health centers.
Other climate-related threats, though harder to measure, still take a heavy toll. Extreme heat, vanishing wetlands, sandstorms, hailstorms, and shrinking water supplies all contribute to Afghanistan’s growing instability. Forest fires, brutal cold waves, and disruptions to hydropower add millions more in damages each year.
International climate agreements like the Paris Accord emphasize that wealthy nations, responsible for most global emissions, should help poorer countries like Afghanistan cope with climate change. However, since the Taliban took power, donors have frozen 28 climate adaptation projects worth 826 million dollars due to sanctions. Only humanitarian aid has continued, while long-term climate resilience programs remain stalled.
Although Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities were excluded from the COP28 climate summit in the UAE, they attended COP29 as observers after an invitation from Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s National Environmental Protection Agency has drafted a new climate strategy, seeking 3.48 billion dollars in funding from 2025 to 2030. But without formal international recognition, securing this money seems unlikely.
In the absence of foreign support, Afghanistan is turning to green energy projects. The country’s national power company recently met with a Turkish firm to discuss solar, wind, and other renewable energy initiatives. Yet these efforts are small compared to the scale of the crisis. Afghanistan has received almost none of the climate adaptation funds promised to the world’s poorest nations, leaving it increasingly exposed to environmental disasters.
As temperatures rise and extreme weather becomes more frequent, Afghanistan’s situation grows more dire. Without urgent action and international cooperation, climate change will continue to fuel instability, pushing an already fragile nation deeper into crisis.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
Escalating gang violence in Haiti has displaced 680,000 children, nearly twice as many as last year, as armed groups seize more territory and basic services collapse, UNICEF warned on Wednesday.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a devastating wildfire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles earlier this year.
The 7th Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan has concluded in Russia with participants issuing a joint statement heavily hinting at a joint opposition to any foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges, and his lawyer said he would file a barrage of legal challenges to the first prosecution by the Justice Department against one of President Donald Trump's political enemies.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to attend a ministerial meeting in Paris on Thursday with representatives of Europe, the Arab world and other nations to discuss Gaza's post-conflict transition, according to three diplomatic sources.
You can download the AnewZ application from Play Store and the App Store.
What is your opinion on this topic?
Leave the first comment