Climate choices

PAKISTAN is out of reasons to treat climate change as tomorrow’s problem. The Economic Survey 2025-26 reports that the country recorded its second-warmest year in 65 years in 2025, immediately after experiencing its warmest year on record in 2024. Temperatures in Azad Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan and KP reached their highest annual levels in decades. These rising temperatures are accelerating glacial melt, altering monsoon behaviour and increasing rainfall variability. The country is confronting increasingly volatile weather patterns with consequences for agriculture, infrastructure, public health and economic planning. The budget reflects a growing recognition of these realities. Climate-tagged expenditure for 2026-27 amounts to roughly Rs214bn, while green subsidies total about Rs476bn. Together, they represent nearly Rs690bn directed towards climate-related goals. The government has also outlined initiatives such as the Pakistan Climate Prosperity Plan, glacier resilience projects and efforts to improve climate financing. Yet climate policy cannot be judged solely by the size of budgetary allocations. Pakistan’s most pressing risks stem from floods, heatwaves, water stress and agricultural disruption. Addressing them requires sustained investment in resilience rather than episodic post-disaster responses. Climate policy is measured not by the number of plans announced but the level of vulnerability communities are exposed to during the next extreme weather event. Even so, difficult questions remain. The Economic Survey estimates that Pakistan will require climate-related investments of around $565.7bn by 2035. Against that benchmark, current allocations appear modest. The issue is not that climate spending is absent from the budget; it is whether the scale of spending corresponds with the scale of challenge described in the government’s own documents. A country experiencing consecutive record-warm years may need to devote a larger share of public resources to climat