Breathe Pakistan: Researcher warns largest cities of Pakistan facing ‘haphazard’ urbanisation

The second day of the second edition of the Breathe Pakistan International Climate Change Conference, organised by Dawn Media, is currently underway in Islamabad. Despite contributing minimally to global emissions, Pakistan remains among the most climate-vulnerable nations, underscoring the critical need for coordinated, locally grounded, and globally informed responses. The two-day conference is bringing together policymakers, experts, and stakeholders from across sectors to examine intersecting challenges and chart a path forward. On the first day, federal ministers, government officials, business leaders, and agriculture and water experts were among the various speakers who presented their perspectives on tackling the climate crisis. View the full agenda here. 12:48pm — Largest cities of Pakistan facing ‘haphazard’ urbanisation Dr Noman Ahmed, Pro Vice Chancellor at NED University of Engineering and Technology, noted that locations and hinterlands that were “not supposed to be urbanised” were undergoing urbanisation. “The largest cities of Pakistan are basically shouldering the load of urbanisation in an extraordinary manner. And these are the cities that are under an enormous amount of duress […] so Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad and all the largest cities of Pakistan are experiencing an extraordinary scale of sprawl,” he said, adding that it was leading to a “very haphazard type” of urbanisation. 12:36pm — Urbanisation not planned, but absorbed: IOM Pakistan official Sumera Izhar, recovery advisor at IOM Pakistan, speaks at Day 2 of Breathe Pakistan. — screengrab Sumera Izhar, recovery advisor at IOM Pakistan, pointed out that in Pakistan, urbanisation was “not planned but absorbed”. She noted that in the past, the main factor for migration was better job opportunities, but “now it is changing to climate-shock-induced” migration. She added that in Pakistan, “more than 13 million people were migrating internally due to climate shocks”. She further added that the iss