World Environment Day has come and gone. President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif used the occasion to underline that climate change is no longer a distant threat but a harsh daily reality for millions of Pakistanis. They are not wrong. The problem is that Pakistan has heard this before.
One does not need to look far to understand the scale of the danger. Pakistan’s climate vulnerability is visible in exhausted water channels, choking air, shrinking green belts and uncertain melt patterns in the northern glaciers. In May, parts of Sindh and Balochistan saw temperatures approaching 50°C, a level of heat that turns ordinary life into a test of survival.
The global warnings are equally grim as coming years are expected to remain among the hottest ever recorded, with the world moving dangerously close to repeated breaches of the 1.5°C threshold. For rich countries, this may still be discussed in the language of targets, transition plans and technology.
Closer to home, we have still not fully recovered from the 2022 floods, which affected around 33 million people, killed more than 1,700 and caused losses running into tens of billions of dollars. Entire communities were pushed from homes into roadside camps, only to discover that reconstruction, like relief, is often slowest for those with the weakest political voice. Nor is the crisis confined to floods. Pakistan’s dependence on the Indus basin makes changes in glacier melt, snow reserves and river flows a direct threat to food security, hydropower and rural livelihoods. Along the coast, the Arabian Sea is sounding its own alarm bells. Sustained marine heat can intensify cyclones, worsen coastal erosion and push saltwater deeper into already fragile deltaic communities.
Pakistan is entitled to make its case before the world, as it contributes less than one per cent to global greenhouse emissions but remains among the countries most exposed to climate damage. Ergo, its demand for climate finance, loss-and-damage support and fair responsibility from industrialised economies is justice. Fair and square.
But that argument cannot absolve the state of its own failures, especially when it continues to allow forests to vanish and cities to expand without planning. The problem, contrary to what consecutive governments have led us to believe, is not only a shortage of money. It is the absence of an institutional blueprint. Environmental laws exist (the country has even formally integrated climate security into its highest-level national security framework, explicitly classifying climate change and resource scarcity as top-tier non-traditional security threats), but enforcement remains weak. Disaster authorities prepare for rescue better than prevention, and urban planning, even today, serves real-estate pressure more readily than public safety.
The coming federal budget must therefore be read as the country’s real climate statement. If climate resilience is missing from allocations for early-warning systems, water conservation and public health preparedness, then all the solemn language of June 5 will have meant very little. *