Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced a fund for the flood victims, as he did during the 2022 floods, and has vowed to mobilise resources in coordination with provinces to support flood affected communities. Additionally, he has pledged to take punitive action against mafias (particularly timber and land) whose contribution to exacerbating the impact of climate change on the public is undeniable.
Pakistan has been ranked as the worst affected in 2025 by the Global Climate Index (GCI), an annual report prepared by Germanwatch that ranks countries based on human and economic losses caused by extreme weather events.
National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) states on its website that “Monsoon 2025 has shown significantly higher intensity and duration, with future escalation anticipated.” At present, rescue, and rehabilitation efforts are continuing with the complete assessment of damage yet to be undertaken as the weather forecast warns of two more rain spells.
Empirical research concludes that the poor/vulnerable are disproportionately affected by natural catastrophes. Pakistan government’s response to deal with weather related crisis has been to launch rescue efforts (with many of the affected complaining of delays that cost valuable lives), announce grants for the affected usually as and when cabinet members (federal and provincial) visit flood sites, followed by only partial rehabilitation of critical infrastructure swept away by floods (due to paucity of funds); and rail in favour of governance measures though they fail to implement them – measures that can play a crucial role in mitigating the effects of climate change.
Chairman NDMA, Lieutenant General Inam Haider, stated Monday last that climate change is accelerating the melting of glaciers with an elevated risk in Gilgit-Baltistan and Kashmir, a trend that he added could intensify in the coming years. Additionally, he referred to cloudbursts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (defined as heavy rain within a very short span of time) exacerbated no doubt by illegal logging by the timber mafia leading many to argue that the devastation in KPK was not only due to extreme weather conditions but also was man-made. In this context it is relevant to note that the elite capture of resources, defined in this case as flouting regulations with impunity (for example the timber mafia and the real estate mafia constructing hotels/apart ments/commercial outlets on the banks or in close proximity to nullahs/streams) compounds loss of life and assets.
Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif lamented that no lessons seem to have been learned from the 2022 floods. The losses in terms of loss of livestock, private and state assets and infrastructure, have yet to be tabulated for 2025 though fatalities are appropriately being updated daily. A ballpark figure of 35 billion-rupee total damage has been calculated – 20 billion rupees by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Karachi alone 15 billion rupees.
To put this amount in perspective three observations are critical from the 2022 floods that was recorded as one of the costliest natural disasters in global history till that year: (i) the damage needs assessment released by the Planning Ministry assessed damages at 14.9 billion dollars, total economic losses at 15.2 billion dollars and estimated needs for rehabilitation and reconstruction of 16.3 billion dollars, which did not include new investments beyond the affected assets; (ii) total pledges by the international community were 10 billion dollars, much of it in loans but by 2024 only 2.8 billion dollars were received and information as to how much of the disbursed amount was in loans and how much grant has not been shared; and (iii) a 2023 UN Habitat report, which promotes environmentally sustainable cities/towns, noted disorganised urban planning, with rapid rural to urban migration leading to sprawling slums due to acute housing shortage – a situation worsened by long-standing governance failures and poor policy decisions. In the event that policy decisions were appropriate their implementation was non-existent that led to the crisis in Karachi last week.
Notwithstanding these lessons the climate change team cobbled by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the time did a stellar job with the then Minister for Climate Change, Sherry Rehman, successfully lobbying for the establishment of an international loss and damage fund during COP27, though the advanced countries failed to invest an appropriate amount in the fund. More recently, she has criticized the budget cuts in climate related sectors by correctly maintaining that they would be counterproductive in addressing the crisis posed by the weather; and suggested water conservation as a key priority.
Pakistan, currently on an Extended Fund Facility (EFF) IMF programme, with extremely harsh upfront conditions, including a severely contractionary monetary policy (in spite of a decline of the discount rate from 21 percent in June last year to 11 percent in June this year Pakistan still sports one of the highest rates in the region) and fiscal policy (premised on a further rise in collections in spite of a mere 2.68 percent growth in 2024-25), was extended a 1.4 billion-dollar Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) concurrently with the staff level agreement reached on the first review in May 2025.
As per the EFF documents, RSF is designed to support Pakistan’s efforts in building economic resilience to climate vulnerabilities and natural disasters: “Access would begin in parallel with the second review of the EFF and continue over the remaining reviews of the EFF. Reform implementation will be monitored through semiannual reviews concurrent with EFF reviews. The proposed RSF will be used as budget support, creating fiscal space to address Pakistan’s climate vulnerabilities and substituting for more expensive domestic commercial financing. Disbursements will increase reserves and thus improve the balance of payments.” Given that money is fungible, and based on past precedence, this logic may, as in the past, allow the government to use RSF funds for balance of payment support, including paying interest and principal on foreign loans as and when due (which is a total of 223.86 billion-dollar – 87.24 billion domestic and the remaining external debt).
The budget for the current year for climate-related investments is as follows: 85.435 billion rupees on adaptation (against 46.625 billion rupees last year), 603 billion rupees on mitigation (as opposed to 212.8 billion rupees in 2024-25) and 28.3 billion rupees on supporting areas (as opposed to 18.8 billion rupees the year before). In total the allocation for the current year is 716.767 billion rupees (2.4 billion dollars given the budget assumption of 290 rupees to the dollar), envisaging a billion-dollar counterpart fund in addition to the RSF. However, it is a matter of concern that the budget for the current year does not indicate the revised estimates for 2024-25 that were spent under this head (budgeted amount for 2024-25 was 278.86 billion rupees) which may have allowed for a more accurate projection of how much would be disbursed this year.
To conclude, Pakistan contributes a very small fraction to global greenhouse gas emissions but is disproportionately affected by impacts of climate change –a fact constantly cited by Cabinet members and globally acknowledged.
However, by now it is fairly evident that the effect of climate change can be mitigated by improved governance (including rigid adherence to construction/engineering regulations) inclusive of exemplary punishments to the responsible mafia players as well as those who have ignored/resisted taking measures against them. There must be no exemptions – a condition that is violated by the very governance system in place in this country reflected in not only the continued exemptions granted by the Federal Board of Revenue (in spite of legitimate IMF concerns) but also the elite capture of current expenditure accounting for over 90 percent of all budgeted outlay.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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