Climate catastrophe: How Pakistan is committing ecological suicide

Express Tribune

a day ago

While Rawalpindi's streets turn into raging rivers and Swat's villages and hotels are razed by turbulent waters during the early monsoon—thanks to swollen rivers and nullahs—Pakistan's ruling elite remain blissfully indifferent to the apocalyptic reality unfolding before their eyes.
The nation ranks among the world's most climate-vulnerable, yet its response? A masterclass in incompetence, denial, and self-sabotage. We are trapped in a vicious cycle of floods, droughts, deforestation, freshwater wastage, garbage mountains, river pollution, and cities choked with severe air pollution.
A symphony of stupidity
Ask any Pakistani policymaker about the top three existential threats, and they'll parrot the same tired script:
India
Terrorism
Extremism
I'm sure no one would even imagine, in their wildest dreams, that climate change is the biggest threat to our existence. Meanwhile, the actual crisis—climate collapse—merits little more than a shrug. Floods drown thousands, heatwaves bake cities, and glaciers melt at terrifying speeds, yet the government's strategy remains: thoughts and prayers.
The economic losses and human casualties (including livestock) from Pakistan's worst recent floods are simply incalculable. Environmental concerns have never been on our policy-making agenda. Political parties are incapable of long-term thinking, obsessed instead with securing the next term in power.
Fossil fuel folly
We are high and drunk on fossil fuels!
While the world races toward renewables, Pakistan doubles down on coal-fired stupidity under CPEC, shackling itself to volatile LNG imports. We are choking our own children with smog.
Solar potential? Wasted.
Wind energy? Ignored.
The result? A power crisis and an ecological disaster—two for the price of one!
Deforestation by design
By nature, we Pakistanis are tree choppers. Ask any village gathering how many people have cut down a tree in their lives—every hand will shoot up eagerly, metaphorical axe in hand. Ask how many have planted and nurtured a tree—hardly any hands will rise.
With one of Asia's highest deforestation rates (1.5% annually), our forests are vanishing—thanks to illegal logging, corruption, and criminal negligence. But who needs trees when you can have concrete jungles and smog?
Hunger for agricultural and forest land
We are committing environmental blunders and starving ourselves by converting fertile agricultural lands and forests into lavish housing societies. This unending hunger for land threatens both our food security and our ecology.
Industrial pollution: Poison without penalty
Textile and tannery giants merrily dump toxins into rivers while environmental regulators nap at their desks. Laws exist—on paper. Enforcement? A myth.
No glacier policy
Glaciers—Pakistan's lifeline—are vanishing. Yet no glacier policy exists. Punjab guzzles water, Sindh turns to dust, and Karachi thirsts—all while officials bicker over outdated irrigation systems.
Floods & droughts: Rinse and repeat
The 2022 super floods killed 1,700 people and caused $30 billion in damages. Lesson learned? None. No early-warning systems, no flood-resistant infrastructure—just the same cycle of disaster, relief, and amnesia.
Climate Governance? More like climate farce
The Ministry of Climate Change is a revolving door of incompetence, treated as a bureaucratic backwater. International climate funds? Mismanaged, misused, or stolen.
Cities like Karachi and Lahore remain unplanned, unlivable heat islands where floods and smog compete for lethality.
Missed opportunities galore
Solar potential? Squandered.
Micro-hydel projects? Ignored.
Biodiversity? Decimated.
The Indus dolphin, snow leopards, and Houbara bustard edge toward extinction—because why protect nature when you can auction it off?
What should be done — If anyone cares
Declare war on climate change and treat it as enemy No. 1.
Conserve glaciers, control GLOFs, introduce glacier seeding, and protect ice masses on a massive scale.
Conduct a national hydrological survey and implement basin management for seasonal nullahs, rod kohis, and river tributaries.
Build large, medium, and small water reservoirs with sound engineering designs.
Launch a nationwide rainwater harvesting plan, with surface ponds, reservoirs, and groundwater recharge wells.
Declare deforestation a serious crime with heavy penalties, and involve communities in forest governance.
Ditch coal—embrace solar and wind immediately.
Enforce environmental laws—jail polluters, ban illegal logging.
Implement a National Water Policy—before Sindh turns into a desert.
Create urban resilience plans—or drown in chaos.
Pass a Glacier Protection Act—because waiting for extinction is not a strategy.
Final warning
Pakistan isn't just a climate victim—it's an active participant in its own destruction. The floods, the heat, the droughts—are acts of criminal negligence.
The clock is ticking. Will Pakistan wake up—or will it drown, burn, and starve itself into oblivion?