QUETTA, PAKISTAN – Ghulam Reza was relieved when the first snow of the winter blanketed Kabul on Sunday. “It is winter in Kabul, but you wouldn’t know it,” he said of the so far warm and snowless season, invoking the city’s old proverb, “Kabul can be without gold, but not without snow.”
For residents of the capital, the first snow was a welcome sight as people poured onto the streets to briefly celebrate the “white gold”. But with the decreasing snow and rain levels in a country accustomed to harsh winters, concerns are mounting over the potentially devastating impact of global warming and climate change.
“Snowfall was a routine sight by January,” 46-year-old Reza said, “but we received this year’s snowfall very late. Seemingly, winters will get warmer in the coming years.” For him, it is clear something is changing in the mountains, putting lives and millions in infrastructure at risk. “The snow-capped mountains will look brown and barren and scanty snowfall will not replenish groundwater sufficiently,” he sighed.
The country, which relies heavily on agriculture to survive, has seen little, and in some areas no snow for the second consecutive year. This could mean that the multi-year drought that has taken a huge toll on the farmers’ livelihoods and exacerbated food insecurity could very well continue into the next harvest season.
Despite being a climate-hit country and a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Afghanistan has been excluded from global climate negotiations since the Taliban seized power in August 2021. The UN Climate Change Conference, which presents a unique opportunity for collective action to combat climate change, did not see any representation from Afghanistan for the third time in a row, including at the COP28 summit held last month in Dubai. International sanctions on the Taliban mean that Afghanistan could not access major UN climate funds, such as the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which had approved nearly $18 million for a sustainable energy project in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover.
While many remain opposed to the Taliban’s representation in such international discussions, others have advocated for the inclusion of the country’s nationals from civil society, including climate experts and scientists, to be invited in these dialogues.
“The international community must recognize the disproportionate impact of climate change on nations like Afghanistan,” said a recent report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). “Swift and meaningful action is both a moral imperative and a global necessity. Failure to act urgently places the most vulnerable at greater risk, perpetuating a cycle of suffering.”
While Mr. Reza sees snow as a symbol of prosperity, for many it could simply bring misery amid crippling economic challenges that have only deteriorated since the Taliban overtook power.
Since last year, Mr. Ahmad Wakil’s previously middle-class family has been pushed to the margins. This winter has tested him several times, forcing him to choose between coal for heating and food for his children as he could not afford both at the same time.
“I can no longer afford coal or woods to burn for heat because I have to feed my family,” the 30-year-old former civil servant told KabulNow, lamenting about his exhausted savings amid soaring prices of necessities. “So, I use car tires and waste material to stay warm. There is no work, no reliable means to make a decent living.”
Mr. Wakil, however, is not alone. Poverty is impacting more than 90% of the country’s population. According to the UN, a staggering 23.7 million people—over half of Afghanistan’s population—are reliant on humanitarian assistance this year, marking a steady increase compared to the previous year.
The Afghanistan Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan 2024 says that $3.06 billion is needed this year to assist millions of at-risk people. However, limited funding and donor fatigue will continue to force humanitarian actors to choose who to help. The fear is, humanitarian organizations say, that continued underfunding could cause more programs to be suspended.
Afghanistan’s environmental woes are exacerbated by a multiplicity of crises at a time when the country runs thin on resources and capacity to respond. The relentless cycle of droughts has not only caused agricultural harvest to decrease by more than half, but it has also internally displaced hundreds of thousands. As if that was not enough, a powerful earthquake in Herat this past fall took the lives of thousands, leaving thousands of families without shelter and means of livelihood. Only then, Pakistan and Iran began deporting nearly a million refugees back to the country, deepening an already precarious humanitarian and economic situation.
The country’s ruling Taliban regime struggles to lift the economy, which is cut off from the global financial systems thanks to the group’s restrictive gender policies, human rights violations, and lack of an inclusive government, among other things. Much of Afghanistan’s $9.5 billion central bank reserves remain frozen and Western governments are hesitant about continuing support for the extremist Islamist group.
The economic and financial isolation has also limited sending remittances by the country’s growing diaspora, one of the last resorts for survival for a fragile middle class hitting poverty limits.
Meanwhile, the Taliban authorities have forced many businesses to close down, further worsening unemployment and depressing investments. Women business owners have been hit hardest. Restrictions on women’s access to work are contributing to the country’s failing economy, generating an economic loss of up to $1 billion—about 5% of the GDP.
28-year-old Zahra Nadiri, a mother of four, who owned a beauty parlor in the western part of Kabul, was forced to stay at home when the Taliban ordered all beauty salons to shut within a month this past summer. “The onset of winter has brought more challenges to my life,” Ms. Nadiri, who became the sole breadwinner of the family after losing her husband to cancer, told KabulNow. “I am barely surviving on limited savings from my business. I need more to feed my children and care for their well-being.”
Afghanistan ranks the world’s fourth most at-risk country for a warming climate and least prepared to adapt, according to the INFORM Risk Index, and places eighth on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index.
The OCHA report says the country’s drought-like conditions are the worst in 30 years. The implications of climate change in Afghanistan, according to the report, extend far beyond rising temperatures. Agriculture, water, energy, health, and the economy are all affected. “Rising temperatures are rapidly altering precipitation patterns across the country, diminishing people’s access to water,” the report indicated, adding drought-related shocks were reported in 15 out of 34 provinces.
55-year-old Muhammad Jan, a farmer in remote Ghazni province, was forced by the severe drought to leave his home and settle in Kabul. Strained water resources due to less snow and rainfall in the central highlands made life increasingly difficult as he lost his agricultural products and much of his livestock, rendering him without any means of livelihood.
“I had a normal but happy peasant life in my village, but my corps were not receiving water with the same consistency,” Mr. Jan told KabulNow. “My children were at risk of hunger due to a shortage of food. So, I was forced to come to Kabul to live with my eldest son.”
Kabul, where Mr. Jan says feels better than his drought-stricken village, has also been grappling with a severe water crisis. The city’s decline in the city’s groundwater levels, water scarcity in the face of a swelling population, and mismanaged water resources coupled with the Taliban’s failure to address the challenge have heightened the humanitarian predicament. Last year, the National Water Affairs Regulation Authority said that the groundwater level in Kabul had witnessed a significant decline of 12 meters in less than a year, prompting residents to dig deeper wells. According to the UN, the situation has reached a critical point, exemplified by the western district of Dasht-e-Barchi running out of water as temperatures rise.
For Mohammad Jan, the high cost of living in the capital, however, forced him to send one of his other sons to Iran in a bid to work. As he prayed for returning to his farming life one day, Mr. Jan wailed that he was not alone.
“Many families would leave their upended lives in their village sooner or later,” he lamented.
