CLIMATE Justice is a global and domestic imperative. It stands at the intersection of environmental sustainability, economic development and social equity. As we move forward, the imperative for climate action has never been more pressing. The challenge lies not just in addressing climate change, but in ensuring that our response is equitable, sustainable and inclusive. We in Pakistan need to acknowledge the barriers to climate action that impede progress and add to the mounting costs of loss and damage. For us, the search for global climate justice must begin at home.

BARRIERS TO CLIMATE ACTION

Pakistan’s path to climate resilience faces multiple interconnected barriers that must be addressed systematically. These obstacles create a complex web of vulnerabilities requiring coordinated intervention strategies. Understanding these barriers, their interactions, and potential solutions is crucial for developing climate resilience strategies.

Economic Barriers: The economic landscape presents fundamental challenges. At its core lies a deep-rooted official aversion to reforms, manifesting in multiple ways. The country’s engagement with international financial institutions is driven by the balance of payment imperatives. It has primarily focused on seeking grants or borrowing for ‘reforms’ rather than seeking finances to directly create jobs, increase productivity, or economic diversification.

This approach is problematic. The resulting mounting debt consumes a significant portion of government revenues, constraining fiscal space and limiting investment in crucial climate adaptation and mitigation efforts, and severely limiting investment in resilience infrastructure.

Economic diversification has remained insufficient, creating additional vulnerabilities.

The economy depends heavily on climate-sensitive sectors such as agriculture and textiles. The manufacturing sector’s contribution has declined since 2000, indicating a failure to transition toward higher-value, climate-resilient industries.

Growth and innovation challenges further compound these difficulties. Pakistan’s GDP growth consistently lags behind regional peers, with research and development spending stagnating at 0.24pc of GDP compared to India’s 0.7pc and Bangladesh’s 0.6pc. The country’s innovation capacity ranks 99th out of 132 countries in the Global Innovation Index, severely limiting its ability to develop and implement climate-smart technologies. While coal still accounts for 13pc of the energy-mix despite its climate implications, investment in renewable energy represents only 2.5pc of GDP, significantly below the regional average of 4.7pc. The renewable energy sector has attracted only $3.5 billion in investment since 2015, representing merely 5pc of its potential.

Demographic Pressures: Population dynamics create significant challenges for climate resilience.

Pakistan’s population grows at 2.4pc awnnually, far exceeding the regional average of 1.1pc. Current projections indicate that the population will reach 338 million by 2050, placing immense pressure on already strained resources. This growth has severe implications for climate vulnerability, as evidenced by the dramatic decline in per capita water availability.

Urbanization Patterns: The urban population grows at 3.3pc annually, largely through unplanned expansion that consumes agricultural land.

Infrastructure struggles to keep pace, with barely half of the urban residents having access to clean drinking water, proper sanitation, or municipal waste collection. Stormwater drainage systems in major cities cannot handle increasing rainfall volumes, resulting in increased incidence of urban flooding. Because of high population growth rate and depressed economic growth, the per capita carbon emissions in Pakistan are declining. The movement towards urban areas is however increasing pressure on already crumbling poor infrastructure.

Population distribution across climate-vulnerable areas presents additional challenges. Coastal districts, including Karachi, have seen population density increase over the past two decades. The proportion of population living in flood-prone areas has risen to 28pc, while those in water-stressed regions now exceed 35pc. This demographic pressure dilutes economic growth benefits.

Environmental Degradation: Environmental deterioration poses perhaps the most direct barrier to climate resilience. Diminishing forest cover is reducing natural carbon sinks and increasing vulnerability to floods and landslides.

Decreasing mangrove forests in the Indus Delta are leaving coastal communities exposed to rising sea levels and storm surges. Wetland degradation affects natural water storage areas, compromising both water security and flood protection. Water regulation services have been particularly affected, with degraded watersheds in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram region, reducing its capacity to withstand climate stresses.

Addressing Pakistan’s climate challenges requires a comprehensive approach. There are seven bridges representing the essential pathways Pakistan must cross to build climate resilience.

As Pakistan approaches its centennial in 2047, the nation faces a critical juncture addressing the interlinked challenges of climate vulnerability and poverty. As demonstrated by a recent World Bank assessment, 55- 60pc of climate-vulnerable districts have poverty rates significantly above the national average. Understanding this complex relationship requires precise vulnerability mapping across Pakistan. The 2022 floods starkly illustrated the prevailing disparity, with 84pc of the affected households falling in the bottom two income quintiles. Looking ahead, climate projections portray a worrisome picture, threatening agricultural productivity and millions of livelihoods.

Pakistan must chart a course where poverty reduction and environmental protection become mutually reinforcing goals. This demands integrating climate resilience into every aspect of national development planning, including climate-resilient agriculture, infrastructure, clean energy access, and ecosystem restoration.

Addressing Pakistan’s climate challenges requires a comprehensive approach. In practical terms, there are seven vital bridges representing the essential pathways Pakistan must cross to build climate resilience.

The vision, the first of the seven bridges to cross, must focus on creating a society where every Pakistani has the tools and resources to withstand climate shocks, regardless of economic status. This requires addressing the current challenge of donor coordination, where multiple projects worth billions suffer from fragmentation and misalignment.

This vision requires immediate action, sustained commitment, and the understanding that investments in climate resilience today will determine Pakistan’s prosperity for generations to come.

The second bridge entails empowering local governments. Effective climate action hinges on robust local governance structures. The institutional framework, shaped by the 18th Amendment, places significant environmental responsibilities on provincial and local governments. However, current administrative barriers and information gaps limit vulnerable communities’ access to National Finance Awards for locally-led development. This requires establishing last-mile delivery mechanisms where local governments can spearhead their direct participation in adaptation planning and resource allocation.

Community engagement through local governments is crucial for effective climate governance.

Traditional top-down approaches often fail to incorporate local knowledge and needs. Local governments can bridge this gap by developing and implementing climate initiatives, including community-based early warning systems and adaptation measures.

Strengthening local governance requires a two-pronged approach. First, financial devolution must match responsibilities. Cities like Karachi, Faisalabad, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar could follow Cape Town’s model of raising climate finance through green bonds for climate resilience projects and reduce dependence on provincial transfers. Second, vertical integration requires strengthened legal frameworks and coordination among federal, provincial and local governments to prevent fragmentation. This can enable efficient resource allocation through a networked governance approach.

The third bridge to cross relates to the management of the Indus Basin. For Pakistan, climate change manifests primarily as a water challenge, with the Indus Basin serving as both life-giver and threat multiplier. The basin, supporting over 215 million people and 80pc of Pakistan’s agriculture, faces unprecedented stress from three interconnected challenges: climate change, geopolitical tensions and mounting demand.

The transboundary nature of the Indus creates significant complexity. The Indus Water Treaty, long considered a model of hydro-diplomacy, faces its most serious threat since inception through India’s recent attempts to review or potentially exit the treaty. Additionally, Afghanistan’s water resource development, as demonstrated by its construction of the Qash Tepa Canal to divert water on Amu Darya, has set a precedent that could affect Kabul River flows that contribute approximately 15pc of the basin’s water. While Article 6 of the Indus Water Treaty provides for cooperation on emergent issues, the treaty’s potential collapse could have catastrophic implications for regional stability and water security. Climate change further complicates these dynamics, as glacial melt in the Hindu Kush-Karakoram region accelerates, with projections suggesting a 36pc reduction in glacier mass by 2100.

The water-food-energy nexus demands an integrated approach. Agriculture currently consumes 93pc of Pakistan’s water resources, while contributing 20pc of national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Smart irrigation technologies, solar-powered systems, and conservation agriculture techniques could transform traditional farming methods, particularly in water-stressed regions. These climate-smart practices, though currently limited in adoption, have shown promising results in pilot projects by reducing water consumption while maintaining productivity and increasing farm incomes.

Pakistan’s plans to double its hydropower capacity to 20,000MW by 2030 must balance energy needs with environmental considerations. Success requires a paradigm shift, and the framework must be supported by robust institutions capable of handling complexity, uncertainty and change.

Moving on, the fourth bridge is accessing international climate finance. Pakistan faces a serious climate finance gap, requiring an estimated $348 billion for climate action by 2030, while currently accessing less than $1 billion annually in international climate finance.

The pathway to international climate finance encounters immediate institutional barriers. No Pakistani government institution presently holds direct access accreditation with the relevant global funds, significantly constraining the country’s ability to access international resources effectively.

Further, Pakistan needs to diversify climate finance beyond traditional grants and concessional loans through distinct financing mechanisms available from major development partners. These include direct budget support, policy-based finance, equity investments, insurance mechanisms, risk-sharing arrangements, pre-arranged finance, contingent credit, and performance-based programs.

Risk financing represents a particular focus area, incorporating contingency funds, insurance schemes and catastrophe bonds. Tracking and targeting mechanisms must ensure equitable distribution of climate finance, as current flows often bypass the most vulnerable regions and communities.

The fifth bridge is about engaging the private sector.

This engagement represents a critical component of Pakistan’s climate finance architecture, requiring effective mobilization of domestic resources and private investments to complement international finance. Current budget allocations for climate-smart projects remain minimal, while fossil fuel subsidies exceed support for renewable energy and green technologies. Restructuring these fiscal priorities through climate-responsive budgeting and targeted climate taxes could release significant resources for climate action.

The State Bank’s green banking guidelines provide a foundation but require expansion into a comprehensive green finance ecosystem. Carbon pricing mechanisms, successfully implemented in some other countries, could generate an estimated $2-3 billion annually while incentivizing emission reductions. Green bonds and climate insurance products could expand the resource base, though current market mechanisms remain underdeveloped, with green finance representing less than 2pc of total banking sector assets.

Creating an enabling environment requires developing bankable frameworks in key sectors, improving public-private partnership (PPP) structures, and strengthening institutional capacity at regulatory, sectoral and corporate levels.

The sixth bridge is research and data infrastructure. Pakistan’s journey towards climate resilience is severely hampered by critical gaps in scientific capacity and evidence-based policymaking.

Current research spending stands at a mere 0.3pc of GDP, with climate-specific research probably receiving less than 5pc of this allocation. Pakistani institutions currently have minimal participation in major international research projects. Institutional limitations create data gaps. Addressing the matter requires a multi-faceted approach.

In all, Pakistan needs an overarching framework needed to coordinate all its efforts, ensure quality standards, and bridge the science-policy gap. However, its effectiveness will depend on political support, adequate resources, and meaningful collaboration.

The final bridge to cross on our way to climate resilience is about mainstreaming climate change.

Integration of climate justice principles requires systematic mainstreaming across all sectors of Pakistan’s governance. Every ministry needs to embed climate considerations into their planning and operations, starting with the Planning Commission’s project approval documents.

This comprehensive approach must extend to infrastructure development, prioritizing climate-resilient designs, and agricultural policies that promote climate-smart practices across Pakistan.

Urban development particularly demands attention, as the cities will require green building codes and thermal resilience measures.

Pakistan has a robust climate policy framework anchored by three key instruments: the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), National Adaptation Plan (NAP), and the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) that outline Pakistan’s sovereign commitments under the Paris Agreement.

However, significant gaps remain in embedding this framework within sectoral policies.

Despite a cursory acknowledgment of Pakistan’s climate vulnerabilities, the current policies require strengthening to systematically address sector-specific climate risks. This is particularly evident in key sectors where policies released after the 2021 NDC lack specific provisions for climate adaptation or mitigation measures.

Pakistan’s development trajectory presents some challenges and many opportunities.

Pakistan’s rapidly growing population, high energy consumption, and development ambitions mean its future GHG emissions could become significant without measures to reduce emissions growth.

Currently, 47pc of the nation’s total emissions come from agriculture, forestry and other land-use, while energy accounts for 41pc. While reducing emissions can help Pakistan lower productivity costs, emission reductions offer critical benefits through improved air quality and reduced health emergencies.

The imperative is clear: Pakistan must take decisive action to integrate climate considerations while pursuing its development goals. This approach will protect Pakistan’s environment and secure its economic future and the wellbeing of its people.

Together, we must reclaim our right to a healthy environment and help Pakistan breathe.

The writer represents Pakistan on the International Board of Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage.