• University of Chicago study warns of steep rise in mortality rates amid climbing temperatures
• Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Lahore, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and Islamabad among cities at risk
ISLAMABAD: As global temperatures continue to rise due to the burning of fossil fuels, Pakistan is projected to see a net increase in mortality of 51 deaths per 100,000 people by 2050, with low- and middle-income countries accounting for 90 per cent of these premature deaths due to climate change.
According to a study, these are the first projections of the impact of rising temperatures on mortality to target adaptation planning, compiled by the Climate Impact Lab (CIL) at the University of Chicago using “highly localised data from around the world”.
“Ten times more people are projected to die each year in lower-income countries (about 391,000 people) than in higher-income countries (about 39,000 people) due to shifting temperatures, despite being expected to have roughly equal populations,” the study noted.
Pakistan and Burkina Faso will be the hardest-hit countries, as per these projections. Pakistani cities fare even worse due to the warming climate.
“While warm, wealthier cities like Phoenix and Madrid are projected to lose an additional 600 and 525 lives each year, respectively, due to a warming climate, Faisalabad, Pakistan, will lose an additional 9,400 lives,” the study revealed.
Eight Pakistani cities — Faisalabad, Multan, Gujranwala, Lahore, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and Islamabad — are among 15 urban centres in low- and middle-income countries ranked by projected increases in net mortality rates in 2050 compared to the 2001-2010 average. With the exception of Khulna in Bangladesh, other cities on the list are from Africa.
Heat-related deaths in Pakistan are projected to exceed “today’s rates associated with tuberculosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and stroke”.
“When considering the 301 cities across the globe that we project will see a net increase in temperature-related deaths in 2050, more than 100,000 additional lives will be lost annually and approximately one in three of those deaths will occur in Pakistani cities,” the study warned.
These deaths will occur because Pakistani cities do not have sufficient adaptation finance available to cope with rising temperatures.
The FY25-26 budget only sets aside Rs85 billion for adaptation, and a large portion of adaptation subsidies is focused on agriculture.
Tamma Carleton, faculty head of research for the CIL and an assistant professor at the University of California, Berkeley, said, “The stakes are too high for the past to be the prologue. Correctly choosing where to spend limited funds on adaptations could have massive impacts on who lives and who dies.”
Dr Mariam Saleh Khan, a climate scientist at the Weather and Climate Services think tank in Islamabad, said multiple scientific studies had projected that humid heat in parts of the country was expected to exceed the physiological limits of human survivability.
“Keeping in mind that Pakistan is one of the fastest-urbanising countries in South Asia, the current projections of CIL should still be considered lower estimates,” she said, adding that Pakistan did not have a “well-equipped” plan to deal with this looming disaster.
Ammara Aslam, a climate change researcher at the Policy Research Institute for Equitable Development, said the cost of adaptation would continue to rise without effective mitigation measures to act as a “shield” against global warming.
In the absence of mitigation measures, the warming world will require increasing financial resources to adapt to extreme weather.
Despite these challenges, adaptation finance is decreasing: it declined from $28bn in 2022 to $26bn in 2023, Ms Aslam said, adding that Pakistan alone will need $152bn by 2030 for its adaptation measures.
Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2026