Pakistan Bulletin
An up-to-date and informed analysis of key issues of Pakistan.
A Nation on the Brink: How Climate Change and Governance Failures Threaten Pakistan’s Stability
October 2024
Climate change and governance failures in Pakistan are pushing the country to a breaking point, leaving vulnerable communities exposed to mounting crises.
Climate change has transformed regions of Pakistan into active climate hotspots, where extreme temperatures not only heighten the risk of devastating climate disasters but also deepen economic inequalities, gradually worsening conditions for the country’s already vulnerable population.
In a world where climate change is no longer a future threat, but a present reality, public policy shaped around immediate needs and quantifiable losses fails to address these damages, leaving populations ill-equipped in the face of unprecedented crises. Pakistan, with its increasing economic challenges of rising inflation and poverty, not only lacks the resources to mitigate the climate crisis but suffers from poor governance and ineffective policy frameworks that fail to address the mounting environmental and economic threats.
Pakistan’s weak governance and climate inaction amplify economic inequalities, worsening the impacts of rising temperatures, droughts, and floods on its most vulnerable.
Pakistan’s deeply fractured political system stands as a strong impediment in the country’s ability to develop cohesive climate change policies and also fuels the socio-economic stresses induced by climate variability. The impacts of changing weather patterns, tropical cyclones, and droughts have greater repercussions on agriculture, food security, and public health which affect the marginalised and vulnerable populations of the country on a larger scale. These climatic changes do not exist in a vacuum and the aftershocks of these varying patterns damage the already thin socio-economic fabric of the state. With an already low Human Development Index of 0.54 (according to recent data from the United Nation Development Fund), Pakistan’s crippling food, water, and energy sectors fail to provide the necessary standard of living for its population as they continue to suffer from climate change induced shocks.
One major cause of disruption in the country’s political system is the prioritisation of private gains over public and environmental concerns by political actors, who, often hailing from influential feudal families, abuse their power to exploit the already marginalised communities. This practice can be seen in the country’s water and land management practices, where political power and influence is used to intimidate small farmers and landowners into surrendering their resources to the large land owners and real estate. During times of climate disasters, these farmers become more vulnerable to such violence as droughts and floods damage crops and reduce the fertility of land, causing greater strain on the farmers’ earning capacity. The abuse of political power has also led to a culture of corruption in sectors like irrigation, where small landowners are often forced to pay bribes to access water, further exacerbating tensions during periods of water scarcity and deepening economic inequalities for these farmers who are already struggling under the effects of the changing climate.
According to the United National Development Report in 2016, a significant barrier to effective climate governance in Pakistan is the lack of institutional capacity at both the federal and provincial levels. Provincial governments, in particular, struggle with limited technical expertise and resources to prioritize climate change actions, which are often viewed as an extension of environmental issues rather than critical, standalone concerns. Furthermore, the National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) has been criticized for being too vague, lacking clear priorities, and failing to identify specific authorities responsible for implementing various policy actions. For example, there is no framework for coordination between different sectors (water, energy, agriculture etc.) and differences between national vs provincial level management make it harder to implement a comprehensive plan that targets all the relevant bodies. There are also diverging views on policy measures needed to combat climate change. While the federal government focuses on context-specific implementation plans by the provincial government through NCCP, the provincial governments have developed their own provincial level climate change policies which deviate from the conventional federal framework. This reflects lack of political will to pursue coordination in the backdrop of the decentralisation of governance following the 18th Constitutional Amendment in 2010 which transferred power from the federal to the provincial governments, including responsibility for managing natural resources and implementing climate policies.
Another repercussion of Pakistan’s fractured political system is the inability to ensure equitable access to natural resources in times of crisis. The country’s political leaders have consistently failed to prioritise the development of comprehensive, long-term strategies to mitigate the impacts of climate change, despite decades of evidence pointing to the growing risks. Provincial governments run by a combination of political parties and bureaucracy reliant on outdated governance structures lack the technical capacity needed to prioritise the issue of climate change. Policy commissions consist of members lacking knowledge regarding climate change and view it as an isolated environmental phenomenon rather than an economic, social, and political crisis. The failure to address the effects of climate change experienced by the public in their daily lives and lack of leadership and coordination between various levels of government has left Pakistan increasingly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters, such as the devastating floods of 2010 and 2022, which caused significant loss of life, massive displacement, and billions of dollars in economic damage.
The federal government’s climate policy framework, though well-intentioned, misses out the tools needed to reach a common mandate. For example, the NCCP outlines 24 objectives and 215 actions but fails to provide clear targets or accountability mechanisms for their implementation and does not adequately link climate change actions to existing regulatory frameworks, such as those governing agriculture, water management, or disaster risk reduction. Moreover, Pakistan’s reliance on international financial instruments, such as the Green Climate Fund and the Global Environment Facility, has left it vulnerable to the mechanisms of these funding institutions, which have yet to unlock finance for the country. Given Pakistan’s history with international finance agencies which have, in the past, limited how Pakistan can deploy funds for local welfare, there are fears about the effectiveness of climate funds for the grassroots.
Political and institutional limitations prevent Pakistan from building resilience against climate change, jeopardising food security, resource access, and public trust.
For a country struggling with in political challenges and economic turmoil, Pakistan’s first plan of action for effective policy-making must be to address the violence caused by the abuse of power by influential institutions and leaders. Secondly, policymakers must have an in-depth knowledge of the factors that influence climate change and also the effects slow changes in the climate can have on vulnerable communities and different sectors of the economy. For this, a more well-informed, inclusive, and transparent government structure is needed that not only ensures equitable distribution of resources but opts for policy-making from the grassroots by engaging affected populations in the decision making process. Capacity-building through investment in climate research on a national level is integral and priority should be given to not only sustainable consumption and production methods but to the provision of risk-mitigating resources for workers in the agriculture and irrigation sectors as well.
At the same time, there must be an active coordination between the federal and the provincial governments on climate change actions across the country. By aligning national disaster management and flood risk reduction plans with provincial strategies and ensuring that climate adaptation efforts are integrated into broader development initiatives, Pakistan can build the resilience needed to withstand the growing violence of climate change.
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