After glacial outbursts and flashfloods swept away scores of villages damaging human lives and infrastructures in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Gilgit Baltistan and Kashmir, devasting floods, in some cases exceptionally high floods, due to unprecedented level of water in rivers and swollen eastern rivers (Ravi and Sutlej) and Chenab (western river), are currently wreaking havoc in Punjab. It is predicted that the devastating floods might hit Guddu Barrage — first barrage on the Indus River — southern parts of Punjab in Seraiki Waseb and Sindh might come next under the severe tumultuous floods (Dawn, 2025). Thousands of grief-stricken families affected by floods need immediate rescue and relief. All possible support by all and sundry should be extended to the efforts of the Punjab government, federal government and civil society organisations in their rescue and relief efforts to minimise the shocking losses as much as possible.
Despite devastating floods in Pakistan now and then, the response (early warning systems), rescue, relief and rehabilitation by the federal and provincial governments continue to demonstrate fatal flaws. Unfortunately, government agencies continue to show slackness in preparedness. Accountability, devolution and transparency are the key factors to make for the flaws in the response, rescue, relief and rehabilitation instruments and mechanisms.
Climate resilience, climate adaptation and climate action demand short-term, medium-term and long-term concrete measures. Locally managed land-use planning, investment in preventive measures, equipping instruments and agencies of provincial disaster-management, empowering local governments to manage climate-induced disasters, stern and sustained legal action against encroachment of communal lands for private profiteering by powerful profiteering networks (Sheikh, 2025) engaged in devouring land, hills, forests and pastures in upper and lower riparian, and making climate action as one of the immediate priorities are some of the medium-term measures that might be able to mitigate some of the risks of climate change, environmental degradation and ecological disruption.
Despite including clean environment in fundamental rights enshrined in Article 9A of the constitution of Pakistan that states “every person shall be entitled to clean, healthy and sustainable environment”, substantial measures for climate adaptation and climate resilience are yet to be seen. Serious efforts for population planning, substantially increasing forest cover, taking concrete measures for water and food security, finding alternative and innovative means for enhancing per capita income, concrete economic and financial planning to alleviate staggering poverty levels, serious efforts for resolving issues related to wars and conflicts through trade integration of South and Central Asia, concrete planning to bring an end to centre-peripheries, rural-urban, inter-provincial, gender, ethnic and religious inequalities, moving fast towards adopting mechanism for clean and green renewable energy and decarbonisation, desisting from unconstitutionally centralising estimation, licensing, leasing and processing of minerals leading to large scale extraction of minerals, making human security as a pivotal discourse of state intervention, and desecuritising climate action and environmental sustainability may be offered as some of the long-term measures to save ourselves from certain destruction due to climate disasters.
Needless to emphasise global responsibility for global threats and global risks. Baysal & Karakas (2017) while explaining Burk’s Security Cosmopolitanism reveals that “Burke starts out his inquiry by portraying security cosmopolitanism as a project to reconceptualize security towards overcoming diverse and all-encompassing threats to human existence. Accordingly, a novel security understanding intertwined with cosmopolitanism, argues Burke, may help to transform existing state-centric security relations, and in line with this, to pave the way for new transnational norms and global institutional arrangements. By doing so, this new security understanding can urge states to take part in finding solutions to globalised security issues including climate change. Security cosmopolitanism, as a novel security understanding, problematises a global insecurity condition that affects individuals, communities, states as well as humanity’s planetary existence” (Baysal & Karakas, 2017: 37-38). Inspite of flagrant attempts by some powerful international circles to cast aspersions on the well documented issues related to climate change, an urge for collective human survival and human values demand to make investment and financing for climate adaptability in the countries, regions and communities affected the most by climate catastrophes an obligatory condition on those who are far more responsible for bringing about the climatic catastrophes. International financing for climate action and environmental sustainability must be substantially increased.
Photos Courtesy: Dawn.
(The writer is Author, Analyst and Researcher based in Islamabad and works as Director Research at the CRPD).
References
Baysal, Basar and Karakas, Ulac. (2017). ‘Climate Change and Security: Different Perceptions, Different Approaches’. Uluslararası İlişkiler. Volume 14. No. 54.
Dawn. (2025). ‘Pakistan floods 2025’. Aug 28. Available: https://www.dawn.com/live/pakistan-floods-2025. Accessed: 28 Aug 2025.
Sheikh, Ali Tauqeer. (2025). ‘Climate disaster lessons.’ Dawn. Aug 28. Available: https://www.dawn.com/news/1937817/climate-disaster-lessons. Accessed: 28 Aug 2025.
