AS the monsoon season approaches, with the prospect of continuing ravages of nature, Pakistan has signed, at the UN headquarters, the climate agreement reached in Paris last year, and has agreed to do its bit in helping keep the global rise in temperatures below 2ºC.

The good news is that we have an accord, and one that includes more countries than ever before. The bad news is that Pakistan had very little to bring to the negotiations, or to take away from them.

In effect, we have been little more than a sideshow in the whole affair. The only aspect of significance was that, earlier on, there was a meeting between the prime ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the Paris summit.

Even the promise of that meeting has petered out with the rise in hostile rhetoric between the two countries.

Each monsoon season has brought a rising arc of destruction to Pakistan as the rains intensify and become increasingly difficult to forecast.

Last year, we saw an entire district ravaged by multiple glacial lake outburst floods in Chitral following a sudden downpour in the district that the Met office was not able to forecast. Then the cotton crop witnessed a massive failure, due at least in part to climatic factors.

Pakistan’s susceptibility to changing weather patterns is disturbingly high, whether because of erosion of agricultural productivity or as a result of floods.

Every year since the massive flooding of 2010 has seen some sort of climate-related disaster. The country remains largely unprepared again this year with the monsoon season yet to start.

The weather forecasting infrastructure is outdated and some weather radars are reportedly not functional.

Forecasting techniques are also out of date, with the Met office struggling to provide even the minimal 48 hours’ warning.

Given these vulnerabilities, it was surprising to see Pakistan bring a short one-page agenda to the climate deal proceedings, and then deliver a dull speech, with no attempt at playing a leadership role.

The performance was further undermined by confusion over who exactly has the lead role in Pakistan — the Foreign Office, the Planning Commission or the Ministry of Climate Change? The government sent the interior minister, who did little more than make a few pro forma statements, to the signing ceremony.

For a front-line state, Pakistan should show far more robust action on climate change. We can only hope nature is kind to us this monsoon season.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2016