By Rimsha Azhar
Pakistan’s climate crisis is not simply an environmental challenge; it is the product of historical neglect, structural inequality, and selective state-building. As climate events grow more frequent and intense, it becomes increasingly clear that disasters do not affect all communities equally. Behind every flood, drought, or heatwave lies a deeper story of uneven development, institutional absence, and policy decisions that have left millions exposed. From the early years of the state, development choices prioritized elite urban expansion over rural resilience. Infrastructure, education, and healthcare were built around privileged zones, while vast rural and informal urban areas remained excluded from planning and investment. Informal settlements that now house the majority of the urban poor have no drainage, healthcare, public transport, or basic services. When climate events strike, these are the first places to collapse and the last to be rebuilt. The climate crisis in Pakistan is therefore a crisis of governance, not of state absence but of selective presence. Political attention and funding often flow to visible, vote-rich constituencies, while marginalized communities, particularly those living in fragile ecological zones, receive little support beyond temporary disaster relief. This unequal exposure to risk is what constitutes climate injustice, where those least responsible for global warming suffer the most devastating consequences with the fewest resources to adapt. Among those most affected by this inequality are women, particularly in rural areas where they fetch water, manage crops, care for families, and absorb the impacts of environmental degradation. Yet they remain excluded from planning, land ownership, and leadership in climate response. The climate crisis, in this sense, also reflects deeply rooted patriarchal power structures. An ecofeminist perspective is essential here because it draws attention to how both women and nature are treated in extractive systems, not as agents but as resources to be exploited or controlled. In Pakistan, this is visible in how women’s unpaid labour sustains families in climate-affected areas, just as natural resources sustain the economy, yet neither is protected or valued by policy. Addressing environmental collapse without acknowledging gendered inequality in ownership, voice, and survival strategies does not merely risk failure, it reinforces the very hierarchies that make communities vulnerable in the first place. Beyond gender, education reflects another deeply neglected front in this crisis, one that determines society’s long-term ability to adapt and respond. Heatwaves, floods, and smog now routinely shut down schools, but curricula remain outdated, lacking climate literacy, disaster preparedness, or sustainability awareness. Young people are growing up amid ecological collapse without the knowledge or tools to understand or confront it. While Pakistan has made rhetorical commitments on international platforms, domestic policy remains disconnected from the scale of the problem. This institutional disconnect extends into governance as well. The 18th Amendment, meant to devolve power to provinces, has failed to reach local governments, which remain politically weakened and financially starved. Climate adaptation, which is inherently local, cannot be managed through central planning or provincial bureaucracy alone. Municipal governments, if empowered, are best positioned to understand terrain, engage communities, and coordinate disaster response. Yet political structures and fiscal priorities have left them ineffective. At the international level, Pakistan occupies a contradictory position. It is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world, yet it struggles to access climate finance due to complex bureaucratic processes, lack of institutional capacity, and donor skepticism around transparency. Developed countries, having triggered the climate crisis through centuries of emissions, resist language of compensation and instead offer limited aid under strict conditions. Much of this funding remains delayed, underspent, or fails to reach the communities it was meant for. The private sector, which could play a role in climate innovation and green infrastructure, remains largely disengaged due to regulatory uncertainty, lack of trust, and procedural inefficiency. Local entrepreneurs proposing sustainable solutions find little state support, while foreign investors face constant policy shifts. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s most powerful untapped asset remains its youth. Millions of young people are entering adulthood during a climate emergency, yet they lack the enabling environment for meaningful participation. Innovation ecosystems are underdeveloped, startup funding is limited, and climate-focused training is almost nonexistent. The state continues to prepare youth for conventional jobs rather than equipping them as problem-solvers, entrepreneurs, or climate leaders. This demographic potential will be squandered unless the government makes structural commitments to inclusive education, accessible finance, and long-term investment in climate-smart sectors. The path forward begins with acknowledging that climate change is not merely a meteorological threat but a manifestation of climate injustice, intersecting with gender, class, geography, and governance. Addressing it requires empowering local governments, embedding climate awareness across all levels of education, reforming disaster response to include women and frontline communities, and ensuring that climate finance and adaptation are locally led and equitably distributed. As Pakistan continues to face floods, food insecurity, displacement, and ecological decline, the question is no longer whether the crisis is real but whether we are prepared to confront the political choices that made us so vulnerable in the first place.
The writer is a PhD scholar at the University of the Punjab. She can be reached at [email protected].