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PAKISTAN and India have momentarily stepped back from unleashing the world’s first climate war, defined as a conflict arising out of a climate-induced scarcity. The diminishing resource in this case is water and climate change is injecting a painful unpredictability into it, while adding credence to the prediction by Ismail Serageldin that “The wars of the 21st century will be fought over water.”
Pakistan has just undergone an unexpectedly prolonged, dry winter season with two provinces declaring a state of drought. Also, the research organisation ICIMOD, issued a dire warning for the mountainous region in South Asia confirming a 25 per cent drop in snowfall this year, being the lowest in 30 years. This shrunken snow stock is what melts and accounts for 80pc of the water supply for over two billion people, who are now at risk of a severe water shortage in the near future. This remains the root cause of a spiralling conflict.
What is really alarming is that, instead of being handled rationally and cooperatively, a toxic Hindutva mindset threatened to weaponise water and then bully it through the battlefield, which got a befitting and resolute response from Pakistan.
However, the real threat to the region remains. As per the latest Climate Risk Index report, Pakistan remains among the top 10 most climate-impacted countries while the whole South Asian region confronts the risk of the five deadliest impacts including floods, droughts, heatwaves, forest fires and freak hurricanes. Water, or lack of it, ominously remains the central triggering factor for most of these impacts and this, in turn, validates the unavoidable urgency of the climate threat to the whole region.
The lessons from conflicts induced by climate are very clear.
This region is also neither the first, nor the only one, facing climate-induced unrest. The interlinkages of climate change and national security are now well researched and categorise the issue as a ‘risk multiplier’, which can exacerbate existing tensions and spark conflicts in regions already stressed with scarcity of resources such as water.
The Sahel region in Africa remains a case study where, over the past few decades, increased temperatures, reduced rainfall and unsustainable usage have dried up almost 90pc of Lake Chad which borders Chad, Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon. This area is now considered a global security hotspot, not only for the environmental catastrophe but also because it is triggering conflict, unrest, as well as extremist terrorism in the region. In neighbouring Sudan, a prolonged climate-induced drought is said to be one of the major causes of the Darfur conflict, which, for more than two decades, has mired the population in an unending civil war.
The lessons from these conflicts are very clear. Triggering them is easy; as famously cautioned by Nikita Khrushchev: “Any fool can start a war.” However, avoiding or resolving them is neither easy nor immediately possible. The sensible way out lies in firstly, accepting the inevitable climate-induced extremities, and secondly, cooperatively assessing the risks while finally undertaking collective mitigation measures that enhance resilience and generate alternative livelihood opportunities in these conflict zones. None of them offers a painless prescription and all of them necessitate problematic cross-border cooperation, but the alternative choice of conflict and war is a sure recipe for disaster with no real winners.
While the world is beginning to grasp the important lessons from these climate-induced conflicts, the South Asian region, disturbed by Indian hubris, is dangerously flirting with an unwinnable war. The extremely perilous situation is also ridiculously irrational, because the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) already provides a robust platform for cooperation that has stood the test of troubled times and remained operational even through previous wars. More importantly, active nuclear deterrence on both sides ensures that any escalation of conflict can only lead in one direction — a state of mutually assured destruction.
In this context, Pakistan’s resolve and capacity to protect its lifeline, ie, the water flows of the Indus, should never be underestimated or undermined. The recent hard-hitting response to unprovoked hostilities should serve as a wake-up call to any delusions of resource dominance in the region. However, the climate-induced scarcity of water remains an inescapable reality and also intrinsically links to the unresolved Kashmir dispute. It needs to be addressed with sane minds remaining within the confines of the IWT and through data, dialogue and diplomacy, not a climate war pushing the region towards becoming a suicidal playground for weapons of mass destruction. The writer is a former climate change minister.
The writer is a former climate change minister.
X: *@aminattock*
Published in Dawn, May 13th, 2025
