Afghanistan: Caught between climate change and global indifference

The world is facing a climate crisis, and few nations are feeling its impact more acutely than Afghanistan. It is currently ranked seventh on the Notre Dame Global Adaptation Index of countries most vulnerable and least prepared to adapt to climate change. Afghanistan’s population is caught in a vicious cycle of floods, droughts, cold and heatwaves, and food insecurity. For a country with the 11th lowest contributions per capita to global carbon emissions, the scale of the consequences it faces is a tragic injustice.

In 2024, Afghanistan experienced severe flooding that devastated vital agricultural land in the northern provinces, and hundreds of people were killed. Before this, the country was ravaged by drought for three consecutive years. Crops were destroyed, leaving millions of people without their primary source of income and food. And yet, despite the increasingly visible impact of climate change on the Afghan people, the country has been excluded from representation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) – the primary mechanism for global climate cooperation – since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Major sources of funding for climate adaptation have also been suspended.

At the UN Climate Change Conference COP29, the country is once again excluded from the negotiations. However, in a positive step towards inclusion, Afghanistan’s National Environment Protection Agency has been invited as a guest of the host country and will hopefully be given the opportunity to present Afghanistan’s updated climate action plan. The country is also represented by delegates from two Afghan civil society organisations accredited as observers.

To withhold climate assistance is to punish the Afghan population for the acts of its leaders. The consequences are being borne by the people, not the de facto authorities. Afghanistan is being denied access to the Green Climate Fund, a crucial source of financing for developing nations to adapt to the effects of climate change. This exclusion strikes directly at the most vulnerable in Afghanistan and occurs at a time when international support to Afghanistan in general is rapidly decreasing.

The need for intervention is urgent. A total 12.4 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity, and four million people, including 3.2 million children under five years old, are suffering from acute malnutrition, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Farmers need sustainable irrigation systems and more resilient crops, and communities need stronger disaster preparedness. Without these investments, poverty will deepen, and millions of people will face an even more severe humanitarian crisis. Women and children who are already bearing the brunt of food insecurity will suffer the most. Agriculture employs more women than any other economic sector in the country, and by excluding Afghanistan from climate financing, the international community is in fact punishing those it has vowed to protect.

The reluctance among predominately Western governments to engage with the Taliban should not come at the expense of the Afghan people. Experts and NGOs have proposed concrete strategies to ensure that climate funding reaches the Afghan people without legitimising the Taliban, e.g. through partnerships of international and national NGOs. The international community must listen to their recommendations and commit to finding constructive, long-term strategies to provide support.

The science is clear: if nothing is done, Afghanistan’s problems with drought and flooding will only worsen. Afghanistan had the highest number of children displaced by extreme weather in 2023, more than 700,000, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Just last month, the WFP warned that the persistence of La Nina weather patterns through winter 2024 will likely lead to less rain and snow in Afghanistan, jeopardising the next wheat harvest and pushing even more people towards hunger.

Climate change knows no borders, and the international community must demonstrate solidarity with the most vulnerable. We cannot afford to turn our backs on Afghanistan. Every day of inaction deepens Afghanistan’s climate disaster.

This article has been co-authored by:

Abdulhadi Achakzai, climate activist attending COP29 and director of Environmental Protection Trainings and Development Organization

Dr Assem Mayar, post-doctoral researcher of climate change

Charles Davy, managing director, Afghanaid

Klaus Lokkegaard, head of secretariat, DACAAR

Nasr Muflahi, country director Afghanistan, People in Need

The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.