Experts highlight link between climate change and violent extremism

KARACHI: The Urban Planner of Institute of Business Administration Mohammad Toheed articulates when infrastructure fails, state legitimacy collapses, and non-state actors fill the gap, the climate shocks like floods and heatwaves further deepen these fractures.

Toheed made this remarks in his keynote speech at the roundtable conference on “climate-induced social fragmentation and its link with violent extremism” held at Press Information Department Karachi on Friday. It was also attended by students, academia, media-persons and experts.

Expressing concern on the impending threats of climate-induced fragmentation, Toheed said that violent extremism thrived where governance failed.

“The social bond is not ensured through socio-political and spatial measures; the climate friendly initiatives are equally required to put check on fragmentation and conflicts in society,” Toheed said.

He said that climate induced displacement and migration caused violence where the infrastructure was poor, uneven distribution of water remained in routine and income inequalities were deeply entrenched.

“The cities, communities and infrastructure are a complex cobweb of the urban societies like Karachi which require balance among them to avoid violence, chaos and conflict,” he maintained.

Emphasizing the urgent town planning of Karachi y, he said there should be a growing realization that it also being a coastal city bore the brunt of forced migrations and displacement.

“Karachi city is left at the mercy of developers and builders after the 1990s housing scheme of KDA.” The areas like Dalmia, Ali Hassan Village, Ibraheem Hyderi and others sheltered the displaced people of coastal areas.

He also referred to the Katchiabadi “Sindhabad” which was home to nearly 150,000 flood affected people with no water and electricity.

Mohammad Toheed stressed on an implementation of the local government system with the climate change mandate; vested in the domain of the Mayor.

DGPR, PID Karachi, Irum Tanweer said that the seminars on the themes like climate-induced fragmentation were the need of the hour and emphasized on the coordinated efforts among all the relevant stakeholders to promote resilient society.

The roundtable conference was one of the series of seminars, organized by PID Karachi in collaboration with PID Media Cell to Counter Violent Extremism Islamabad.

Earlier, the seminars were conducted in IBA city campus Karachi and Salim Habib University Karachi. The team of PID Media Cell to Counter Violent Extremism Islamabad has organized such seminars in the capital city, Peshawar, Faisalabad and will conduct in Lahore, Multan and other cities of the country. This move has the broader objective to understand the evolving landscape of digital media and its corresponding repercussions such as fake news, disinformation and violent extremism.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025