Glof threat

Pakistan is home to over 13,000 glaciers — the largest concentration outside the polar regions. Yet nearly 10,000 in Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan are receding. The PMD has recently warned that sustained above-normal temperatures in the northern regions could sharply increase the risk of glacial lake outburst floods — and that warning should shake Islamabad out of its habitual complacency.

More than 7.1 million people in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa are vulnerable. Every outburst flood rips through roads that connect remote valleys to markets, damages hydropower facilities that feed into an already strained grid and buries farmland that sustains local economies. Tourism — one of the few growth sectors in the north — collapses after each disaster. Reconstruction demands emergency allocations that strain a fiscally stretched state. As a result displacement becomes a recurring reality. Climate volatility is thus eroding the socio-economic foundations of the country.

In a fragile macroeconomic environment, repeated disasters widen the gap between development planning and crisis response. The poorest absorb the heaviest losses, amplifying inequality and social strain. What is needed is not another advisory, but structural reform. High-risk glacial lakes must be mapped, monitored and, where feasible, drained in advance. Early warning systems must translate into enforceable evacuation protocols at the district level. Climate-resilient infrastructure — from reinforced roads to slope stabilisation — must become standard practice, not post-disaster improvisation. Adaptation spending should be treated as essential national investment.

Pakistan must also continue pressing for climate finance and loss-and-damage commitments internationally. Contributing less than 1% to global emissions while bearing disproportionate consequences is an injustice. But external funding will mean little without internal coordination and urgency. The glaciers are responding to physics, not politics. Whether the state responds with foresight or with familiar delay will determine whether catastrophe remains cyclical or becomes the new normal.