Climate justice at home

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 millio