The world media reporting of the agenda of the Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos this January remained overwhelmed with high-profile diplomatic initiatives around peace frameworks in conflict zones. On the menu, the WEF had some other issues of broader significance too, which were deprived of due projection. Davos is not a negotiating table for treaties or political settlements only; it is mandated to be a convening platform where economic, technological, and environmental risks are framed, priorities are signalled, and high-profile consensus is stress tested. This year, the agenda also revolved around two issues that are shaping the global order far more persistently than any single and ambiguous peace initiative: artificial intelligence and climate finance.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions at WEF from 2021 to 2025 have treated artificial intelligence as a systemic risk, warning that rapid adoption could disrupt labor markets, widen inequality, concentrate economic power, and undermine trust through opaque systems, concerns reinforced by the IMF’s 2024 analysis estimating that AI and automation could affect about 60 percent of jobs in advanced economies and 40 percent globally. In response, WEF has promoted mitigation mainly through voluntary governance frameworks, ethical principles, transparency standards, skills development, and public-private cooperation, prioritising trust and interoperability, as mandated. Implementation worldwide, however, has been uneven: while ethics frameworks such as UNESCO’s 2021 on AI are being operationalised and enforceable rules have emerged in a few jurisdictions, many countries continue to rely on non-binding guidelines, awaiting actions on a large scale.
Discussions on climate finance have repeatedly underscored a widening gap between ambition and delivery, as global climate funding reached 1.46 trillion US dollars in 2022, according to the Climate Policy Initiative’s 2024 report, remaining far below the several trillion dollars annually needed by 2030. Despite pledges, chronic underfunding therefore figures out to be the most acute concern for climate adaptation in developing countries. Davos has promoted mitigation through mobilising private capital, blended finance, improved project pipelines, and de-risking investments, while recognising the necessity of public and concessional finance. Overall, the post-COVID agenda has raised awareness and encouraged voluntary coordination, but implementation has advanced primarily where binding national or multilateral actions exist. This very fact reveals that the limited translation of coordination into enforceable policy and sustained financing remains the main constraint since 2021.
A climate finance delivery unit should be integral to the Ministry of Finance instead of the Climate Finance Wing of the Ministry of Climate Change for synergising a single national pipeline of climate projects with all stakeholders.
Despite broad agreement on the challenges discussed at Davos, dissent persists over both priorities and methods. One critique argues that elite forums overemphasise artificial intelligence governance at the expense of urgent climate adaptation needs, diverting attention from funding gaps in the Global South that are already producing humanitarian harm. Another contends that reliance on coordination and voluntary consensus slows progress, asserting that markets and competition are better suited to allocate capital and shape governance, and that excessive focus on frameworks can deter investment. These differences point to deeper unresolved issues around accountability, as Davos lacks mechanisms to enforce commitments to equity, since AI and climate finance remain concentrated in advanced economies, and legitimacy, as informal elite platforms increasingly shape global narratives without the authority or democratic grounding of treaty-based institutions.
The implications for Pakistan to manage technological disruption and climate vulnerability are far-reaching, as it faces labour market pressures from automation without the fiscal space to fund large-scale retraining or social protection. Pakistan is striving to remain in step with growing needs for public and private finance, debt relief, and technology transfer. At the same time, it is also among the countries most exposed to climate shocks, as evident by extreme flooding documented by the World Bank and UN agencies in recent years, yet it remains heavily dependent on external climate finance and concessional support.
Pakistan’s response to artificial intelligence must now move from policy intent to enforceable governance. The immediate priority is to enact a comprehensive personal data protection law and establish an independent data protection authority with investigative and sanctioning powers, as AI systems cannot be governed credibly without clear rules on data use, consent, and redress. Repeated drafts have been presented from 2018 to 2023, which provided for a national commission to this effect, but the law cannot be enacted. It is therefore imperative for Pakistan to create a dedicated AI oversight function, separate from promotional or innovation bodies, with authority to regulate high-risk applications in areas such as public services, biometrics, policing, credit, and hiring. Mandatory AI impact assessments should be required before government procurement or deployment of such systems, accompanied by a public register disclosing where and how AI is used in state functions. Public-sector procurement standards should be leveraged as an enforcement tool, requiring audit rights, security testing, and transparency from vendors, while specific safeguards against deepfakes and synthetic misinformation should be introduced for elections and emergency communications.
On climate finance, Pakistan’s central challenge is not strategy but delivery. A climate finance delivery unit should be integral to the Ministry of Finance instead of the Climate Finance Wing of the Ministry of Climate Change for synergising a single national pipeline of climate projects with all stakeholders. Climate budget tagging, already initiated at the federal level, should be strengthened by linking tagged expenditures to measurable outcomes and public reporting, ensuring that climate spending reflects real adaptation and mitigation gains rather than relabeled routine outlays. Pakistan should also develop a layered disaster risk financing framework combining budget contingencies, contingent credit, and insurance instruments to reduce the fiscal shock of climate disasters. Finally, climate investments should be aligned with macroeconomic stability by prioritising projects that reduce energy imports, limit disaster-related losses, and support long-term growth, ensuring that climate action strengthens rather than strains Pakistan’s fiscal position.
Following up on Davos for Pakistan through concrete action is critical. Regular participation at the WEF should be less for visibility and more for leverage, by aligning priorities with emerging governance challenges like artificial intelligence and climate financing, through coalition building on risk mitigation strategies based on domestic reform, investment, and resilience building.
The writer is a freelance columnist and can be reached at zulfiqar.shirazi @gmail.com