CLIMATE debates routinely cite Pakistan’s grim paradox: we are among the world’s countries most exposed to climate shocks, yet we have contributed little to the emissions that drive them. At recent COPs and other international forums, Pakistan has rightly called out this injustice, as well as the failure of international recognition to translate into financing at the required scale.
But it would be equally inexcusable if we failed to recognise the same pattern of injustice within the country. The regions most battered by floods, heat extremes and glacial lake outburst floods are often the least responsible for high-emissions lifestyles: excessive energy use, private vehicle dependence and other climate-unfriendly consumption patterns.
While a common defence claims lack of granular data for addressing our problems, including climate adaptation, overlooking the existing data from multiple sources within Pakistan indicates sheer apathy. Climate risk can be mapped at the district level using the Met Office’s indicators on temperature and rainfall, census markers of drought- and flood-affected mauzas and other available information. Last year, the Population Council released its District Vulnerability Index for Pakistan , curating and analysing Pakistani data to rank districts and link them with specific climate risks.
Of the 20 most vulnerable districts, 17 are situated in Balochistan, two in KP and one in Sindh. These districts are likely to face significant climate stress, including temperature and rainfall changes, flooding and droughts. We must first acknowledge these inherent disparities and then design remedies to reduce chronic vulnerabilities.
To build climate resilience, reducing vulnerability must form the core of our development agenda.
The picture that emerges is consistent: the most vulnerable districts are concentrated in Balochistan and KP, extending into Sindh and southern Punjab if we expand the vulnerability threshold. This encompasses roughly 29 million people living with deep, structural disadvantage. Many of these communities are remote and disconnected; long distances to paved roads cut them off from even primary schools and basic healthcare. Households are more likely to live in temporary, often overcrowded single-room homes with large families. Livelihoods depend heavily on agriculture and livestock, frequently as unpaid family labour.
These districts will repeatedly bear the brunt of multiple climate shocks. If we refuse to acknowledge that millions of Pakistanis live on the edge — highly exposed and poorly protected — then every flood and extra degree of heat will push them further into poverty illness, and displacement. This will only exacerbate the damage of international climate injustice, as communities with unequal starting points cannot absorb shocks, rebuild and return to their earlier lives.
This was fully apparent when the 2022 floods produced scenes that should have shamed us all: pregnant women giving birth in the open, children dying from preventable causes, families with nowhere to bury their dead. The catastrophe was not merely about water levels; it was about who the water reached first — and who was left with the least protection when it receded.
Climate action cannot be separated from development planning. Unless we level the playing field through smarter planning and fairer resource allocation, climate initiatives will remain a band-aid until the next shock knocks families down again, especially women and children, and traps them in perpetual poverty. Pakistan is at its best when it solves its problems with local capacity and local solutions, but those solutions must reach the places that are most exposed and the least served. We learned during the Covid-19 crisis that shocks are not experienced equally. Where systems are stronger — typically urban centres — the people cope better. Where services are thin and distances long — generally remote rural districts — the same disruption becomes a crisis. Climate shocks follow these same fault lines, but they will intensify and recur.
At the recent Breathe Pakistan conference , more than a dozen panels warned that time was running out. Speakers highlighted technical solutions — renewables, e-vehicles, cleaner industry — and urged changes in personal spending and behaviour to reduce waste and pollution. All these matter, but climate action can succeed only when the people are equipped with a minimum platform of education, health and livelihoods. Policies that assume capacity where none exists will not protect those living on the edges.
Inclusivity must be central. The needs of women and girls, young people, infants, older persons and people with disabilities were discussed in a panel titled ‘Unequal burdens, shared futures: reframing climate action through equity’. True climate justice, achieved through equity, must begin by confronting the reality that many of the most severely vulnerable districts also face multiple, overlapping climate risks. In these places, children may walk 10 times the usual distance to reach school and a pregnant woman may need to travel 50 kilometres for an antenatal check-up — distances that turn every flood, heatwave and disease outbreak into a life-threatening event.
No single government or group is solely to blame, nor should any feel defensive; high levels of vulnerability transcend provincial boundaries and did not emerge overnight. Regional and district-level disparities are the product of political economy, geography and decades of uneven investment in infrastructure, human capital and livelihood opportunities. Corrective action must transcend political interests and be treated as a national priority.
If we are serious about climate resilience, then reducing basic vulnerability must be at the core of our development agenda — not as an add-on after disasters. The most practical path involves data-driven, district-focused planning that targets equity and risk together. Provincial finance commissions and local government strategies should align behind a coordinated reform agenda for the most vulnerable districts by 2030. This agenda should include connecting remote communities through better roads, transport and communications; upgrading education and health services; diversifying livelihoods; expanding disaster-resilient housing; investing in human capital through improved demographics (including lower fertility rates and higher labour force participation); and strengthening community-level preparedness and response.
This is what climate justice looks like when it starts at home.
The writer is country adviser, Population Council.
Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2026
