Lahore, Gujarat, and Sialkot – what do these cities have in common? They are all major urban centres in Punjab, and they were all drowned in unprecedented floods this week, with Sialkot reportedly experiencing the most intense recorded rainfall in half a century, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department. If this is the state of our major cities, one can only imagine the conditions in rural Punjab. One also wonders if departments like the PMD are only there to measure the loss, rather than prevent it.

Weak coordination and unclear mandate

Pakistan does not seem to have a clear and centralised disaster management system. First we have the “Pakistan Meteorological Department”(PMD) – they are responsible for weather forecasting. Then we have the “Federal Flood Commission” (FFC), responsible for policies around flood prevention systems such as barrages, followed by the “Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination”, “Rescue 1122”, and finally, the “National Disaster Management Agency” (NDMA), and the “Provincial Disaster Management Agency” (PDMA). So, we have at least 5 separate government bodies that were meant to be on the lookout for these floods to minimise damage and coordinate relief efforts, and they all have overlapping mandates. So why did we still have unprecedented floods?

The PDMA is responsible for the coordination between all the different government agencies. In an interview with the Express Tribune last month, the Director General of PDMA noted that “If you look at the forecast for this year, above average rainfalls have been predicted”. This implies that the PDMA should have been aware of the need for exceptional disaster prevention, considering that he further elaborated that “If you focus on the specifics, you find that over 40-60% above average rainfalls are predicted…which increases the likelihood of urban flooding in Lahore.”

He states that “The majority of our water goes into the drainage system, and there we are not able to benefit from it in the same way that we can and the water goes to waste into the Ravi.” This statement was made weeks before the Monsoon season. The obvious question to ask is that if the government was aware of the likelihood of floods and was conscious of “wasted” water, then why were efforts not made for the rapid development of required projects?

“All the people who die in disasters, as per our compensation policy, are compensated.”

In a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) session, according to the Express Tribune, the Chairman of NDMA, Lt. General Inam Haider, noted that out of Pakistan’s 7,500 glaciers, 45% are rapidly melting. He suggested that Pakistan needs to switch from ground-based sensing to using climate satellites. This is a sensible suggestion, but why were these arrangements not made in advance by the government? Climate change is a reality, but solving the global emergency doesn't come under the mandate of our numerous disaster response and monitoring agencies; therefore, noting the existence of climate change is redundant. There needs to be visible effort on the ground and in technology that shows that we are preparing to adapt to what is coming down the line.

Deforestation, encroachment and flood vulnerability

This flooding also exposed the consequences of encroachment, legal or illegal, on the flood-prone river banks. Many of Lahore’s neighbourhoods have been flooded, including Park View Housing Society, built by the Ravi. This is a testament to the vulnerability of even elite housing societies to the lethal dangers of extreme weather events caused by climate change. Building embankments is not sufficient, as they tend to breach during exceptional floods, and often make it difficult for the water to drain back into the river. Even illegal encroachments do not happen in a vacuum – if the encroachments are connected to the rest of the city through roads and infrastructure, it requires the partnership of other actors, therefore, the non-enforcement of existing laws by the government is a root cause.

Satellite images from the Neelum Valley in Kashmir have been going viral because of a shocking contrast. On our side of the Neelum River, one can see clear-cuts and shrinking greenery, while on the other side of the Line of Control, one sees a lush green national park. Which side would perish more in the event of flooding? The trees on the Pakistan side of the Neelum Valley were not cut down by India, nor by the top 10 polluting economies. We would have only our poor prevention and mitigation to blame if the valley is destroyed by a flood. The viral image can be verified with a quick search on Google Earth as seen here.

Shifting the blame

Every year, we face the same floods, and every year we come up with more truisms or bad faith deflections: global climate change, Indian water aggression, and the incompetence of previous governments. While climate change is an indisputable global emergency, it is not within Pakistan’s capacity to address the global crisis. Pakistan lacks the international standing or credibility to lead that change. Furthermore, since when does the climate crisis absolve us of our responsibilities to protect our civilians? This false dichotomy needs to end.

Provincial inequity 

Another aspect of federal failure is evident in the difference in relief efforts in K-P vs Punjab. These annual floods are now a reality, and are predicted to be 22% worse next year. According to reports, around 150,000 people have been evacuated by the NDMA in Punjab, compared to only a little over 14,000 in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa over the flooding in that province, according to a Dawn report. This raises yet another question over the inequity between disaster management in Punjab as opposed to more neglected provinces like KP and Sindh. Over 600 people are dead in KP. How many of these deaths are due to systemic neglect by the federal authorities? It is yet to be seen how the possible flooding in Sindh will be dealt with.

The climate crisis risks becoming a money-making political economy for the elite in Pakistan. Just like the poor condition of many Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon has become a money-making scheme for these countries. They receive aid from all over the world to care for these people, while often barring them from employment, leaving the regimes with no incentive to improve the conditions of Palestinians. Neglect becomes lucrative.

What should the international community do?

According to a report by The Express Tribune, the World Bank has committed 2.19 billion, while the Asian Development Bank has pledged 1.9 billion, and the Islamic Development Bank has pledged 3.6 billion. This is based on Pakistan’s assessment of “post damage needs”, amounting to $16 billion in total.

The international community shouldn’t simply throw money at Pakistan. The world must demand accountability on adaptation plans in Pakistan, while Pakistan must demand accountability on emissions reduction. Pakistan needs a clear plan for implementation and transparency, such that money can’t be pocketed by middlemen. Aid should be provided under the strict conditions of transparency, accountability, and mitigation plans for future flooding. If the international community does not set strict conditions, then the climate crisis will become an industry unto itself in Pakistan, as a means to make money off of the destruction of our habitat – a more blatant caricature of what’s already been happening since the Industrial Revolution.

The worst is yet to come

According to a research paper, “The Future of the Human Niche”, authored by some of the world’s most prominent experts, over a billion people could be displaced as a result of climate change within the next few decades – something that has never happened before. In their typical intellectual euphemisms, the authors of the paper do not present this opinion with an alarming tone, instead, they write: “We demonstrate that depending on scenarios of population growth and warming, over the coming 50 years, one to three billion people are projected to be left outside the climate conditions that have served humanity well over the past 6,000 years.” This is academic speak for telling us that we are headed for societal collapse.

The climate crisis is another way of saying: mass rape, mass displacement, and mass starvation. This is the truth about societal collapse – the inevitable result of the climate crisis. As temperatures continue to increase, soon, we will not be able to grow food in much of Pakistan and India. The current flooding of the Punjab will be the least of our concerns 20-30 years down the road. A country with extreme food scarcity is a country that is bound to be engulfed by war, civil war, internal refugees, and ethnic hostilities.

So far, over 1,000,000 people have migrated to Karachi from Interior Sindh, according to data from the Jinnah Institute, because they found themselves living “outside the climate conditions that served humanity well over the past 6,000 years.”

What can we do? 

The rhetoric around building more dams seems to be a politicisation of the ongoing tragedy, which could reignite the inter-provincial animosity between Sindh and Punjab and create disharmony. Instead, solutions need to be holistic and must involve a range of ideas. For example, good zoning laws could be beneficial. Zoning laws should be designed to prevent development in flood-prone zones altogether, especially with the increasing unpredictability of weather patterns. Early warning systems need to be strengthened as well. Countries like China, with plenty of dams, are still vulnerable to floods. In 2024, during Typhoon Tramy in Hainan, the rainwater was intense enough to cause the authorities to open floodgates when the local dam reached capacity. During the 2021 floods, when over 13 reservoirs were reportedly at capacity and overwhelmed their ability to control the flooding. “Check dams” and “retention basins” could be community-based, decentralised alternatives to full-fledged dams.

All the evidence points to the fact that “deep adaptation” as proposed by Professor Jem Bendall, is the way to go for low-emission states, while reducing emissions is the primary responsibility of the G 10 Economies. In a 2018 paper, ‘Deep Adaptation: A Map for Navigating Climate Tragedy’, Bendall argues that we need 1) Resilience, 2) Relinquishment, 3) Restoration, and 4) Reconciliation. Instead of constantly trying to control nature, we need to come to peace with the reality of the damage caused to nature, and refrain from further “development” and instead mine indigenous adaptation measures that had served us prior to excessive urban development. This will require us to address our exploding population by following the Bangladesh model.

We must start with the basics: 1) Build appropriate storm drainage in the major cities, 2) Halt “development” work along all wetlands, rivers, and forests, 3) Restore forests and wetlands that have been destroyed, and 4) Present a coherent “deep adaptation” plan to the international community with the help of climate change experts, that aims to make Pakistan as resistant as possible to increasing floods, droughts, and heatwaves. 4b) Allow the international community to have full supervision and the ability to monitor the flow of money that is meant to help the country adapt.

Finally, we shouldn’t be quick to redeem ourselves by citing that we are contributing to less than 1% of global emissions. We should ask ourselves, instead, whether if we had the industrial capacity of China and the United States, would we have cared at all about the impact of climate change? The answer is clear to anyone who takes a look around us, evident in the way we have treated our ecosystems, our housing, our rivers, our forests, and even our urban infrastructure. Our low emissions are circumstantial. Had we been in the same position as the United States or China, would we have been any different? The state of our environmental protection laws suggests that we may have been even worse.

The famous song “Sohni Dharti Allah Rakhe Qadam Qadam Aabad”, should be banned until we prove ourselves worthy of these lands. With floods drowning the Punjab, we must ask: what have we done in the service of this Dharti? Why are we surprised when our Sohni Dharti is not kind to us in return?

Zain Haq is a freelance contributor

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author