ISLAMABAD: The federal government has begun consultations on the country’s first-ever National Urban Strategy as authorities seek to address growing climate threats facing the country’s rapidly expanding cities, the climate change ministry said on Sunday.
The initiative comes amid increasing concern over the impact of extreme weather events, including flash floods, heatwaves and urban flooding, which have repeatedly exposed weaknesses in the country’s urban planning and infrastructure systems in recent years.
According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination, the consultations were launched during a high-level workshop organised jointly with UN-Habitat Pakistan.
The discussions focused on climate-related disasters affecting urban centres, including flash floods in northern regions, urban flooding in Karachi and flooding incidents in Islamabad’s upscale housing societies.
UN-Habitat, a United Nations agency mandated to promote socially and environmentally sustainable urban development, participated in the deliberations aimed at strengthening climate resilience in Pakistani cities.
The ministry warned that Pakistan’s cities were increasingly becoming “epicentres of climate vulnerability” due to unregulated construction, inadequate drainage infrastructure, encroachments and the absence of climate-sensitive urban planning.
According to the statement, Climate Change Secretary Aisha Humera Moriani said cities across the country were rapidly turning into “urban heat islands, flood traps and water-stressed zones” because climate risks had not been integrated into planning and governance frameworks. “The hard truth is that no national framework currently exists to systematically address these interconnected challenges,” she said.
Moriani noted that Pakistan’s urban population was expanding at a pace that outstripped the country’s capacity to cope with climate shocks. She said around 36 percent of Pakistan’s population currently lived in urban areas, adding that the figure was projected to exceed 50pc within the next two decades.
She cautioned that unchecked encroachments, poor waste management systems and outdated drainage networks had significantly increased the risk of urban flooding across major cities.
The proposed National Urban Strategy, according to the ministry, would be aligned with Pakistan’s National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) 2021, the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) 2023 and the country’s commitments under the Paris climate agreement.
The NCCP serves as Pakistan’s principal policy framework for climate adaptation and climate-resilient development, while the NAP outlines measures aimed at improving resilience against disasters such as floods, droughts and heatwaves.
Pakistan remains among the countries considered most vulnerable to climate change despite contributing only a fraction of global greenhouse gas emissions. In recent years, the country has witnessed increasingly frequent and severe weather events, including heatwaves, droughts, glacial lake outburst floods and torrential monsoon rains. Last year’s monsoon season alone claimed at least 1,037 lives between June 26 and Oct 1, according to official figures.
Earlier this year, heavy rains and flash floods in northern areas damaged hotels and guesthouses constructed along natural floodplains, while several high-end housing societies in Islamabad also experienced severe flooding following intense downpours.
Torrential rains in late March and early April this year also caused widespread destruction in different parts of the country, with the death toll from rain-related incidents surpassing 80.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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