Pakistan’s Silent Environmental Collapse

By Jalaksh Assadullah

Pakistan is no longer battling a single climate crisis; instead, it is fighting a full-scale war on four environmental fronts simultaneously—from the frozen, collapsing peaks of Gilgit-Baltistan to the toxic, dying waters of Manchar Lake, while global superpowers debate emission targets in air-conditioned conference halls.

Moreover, Pakistan, which contributes less than 1% of global greenhouse gas emissions, is paying the ultimate price of climate injustice. What we are witnessing is not merely a natural tragedy; rather, it is the result of chronic failures in governance, planning, and political will.

Firstly, Gilgit-Baltistan, the northern region of Pakistan, has been experiencing glacial melting for decades. We once considered the southern floodplains Pakistan’s climate ground zero. However, that reality has recently shifted northwards to Gilgit-Baltistan, which is home to over 7,000 glaciers—the largest concentration outside the polar regions, particularly in the Karakoram and Hindu Kush ranges. The region is now experiencing unprecedented high-altitude heatwaves, resulting in a terrifying rise in glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). As glaciers retreat rapidly, unstable lakes form behind loose moraine walls. When these walls breach, torrents of ice, rock, water, and debris are released without warning, destroying remote villages, critical bridges, roads, and fragile hydropower infrastructure within minutes. The real tragedy here is not the flooding itself but our criminal lack of preparedness.

Moreover, our much-hyped early-warning systems are often practically non-functional. In the deep valleys of Hunza, Ghizer, and Chitral, poor mobile network coverage means that warnings often fail to reach people. Furthermore, district administrations, under political pressure and influenced by corruption, continue to allow the construction of hotels and houses in hazardous locations, including active and historically known floodplains, due to non-existent or poorly enforced local zoning laws. We are not merely victims of global warming; we are also architects of our own local vulnerability. We are watching predictable, mapped disasters unfold without taking adequate preventive measures.

Furthermore, the second major crisis is the monsoon mayhem. The annual crisis of climate injustice continues to intensify. What was once dismissed as an anomalous, once-in-a-century monsoon event has increasingly become a recurring structural reality, intensified by broader climate patterns, including El Niño and Indian Ocean warming. In the last three consecutive years, severe monsoon floods have caused losses worth hundreds of billions of rupees, wiping out entire cotton and rice crops and displacing millions of Pakistanis.

Moreover, the disaster has two dimensions: it paralyses the agricultural heartland of Sindh and South Punjab, often described as the nation’s food basket, while simultaneously choking metropolitan centres such as Karachi and Lahore with catastrophic urban flooding. This exposes the failures of our urban planning. The crisis must also be framed as a textbook case of climate injustice. We must ask ourselves: how can a country responsible for only 0.8% of global emissions be ranked among the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries? This question must be at the centre of every global climate forum.

Domestically, the criticism is even harsher. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) continue to operate primarily in a reactive mode. Their strategies largely involve distributing tents, boats, and ration bags after floods have already destroyed everything. There is no sufficiently proactive approach involving pre-monsoon drainage clearance, the construction of small dams and water reservoirs, the distribution of climate-resilient seeds, or scientific urban water management. Until our bureaucracy stops treating floods merely as natural calamities and starts recognising the role of governance failures in worsening their impacts, this cycle of destruction and donor-funded relief will continue indefinitely.

Moreover, the third major crisis is the neglect of the south—Makran’s oil slicks and the dying Indus Delta. While the north melts and the centre drowns, the south is quietly being poisoned. Along Pakistan’s vast southern coastline, widespread environmental degradation is damaging marine ecosystems and undermining the coastal economy that depends on them. Recent geopolitical conflicts and increased tanker traffic in the Arabian Sea have raised concerns about shipping hazards, potentially increasing the risk of oil spills along the Makran coast, including the beaches of Gwadar and Pasni. Such marine contamination can become an ecological catastrophe. It threatens endangered green sea turtles, damages delicate marine ecosystems, and can contaminate the daily catch of local fishermen, making it unsafe or unsellable.

This crisis is compounded by another, slower disaster: the decline of the Indus Delta. Due to insufficient freshwater flows downstream of Kotri Barrage, seawater intrusion has already affected vast areas of fertile agricultural land in Thatta and Badin. Our state machinery lacks adequate emergency marine pollution response infrastructure, including oil booms and skimmers, as well as the technical capacity required for an effective response to major spills. It is a matter of national shame that local volunteer environmentalists and fishermen may be left to tackle oil pollution using primitive equipment, exposing themselves to potentially hazardous substances. Provincial governments must take responsibility by seeking timely international assistance when necessary and holding polluters accountable under applicable domestic and international maritime laws.

In addition, the fourth crisis is the decline of our lakes. The Manchar tragedy is perhaps one of the most painful and preventable environmental disasters. It represents a human-induced, slow, toxic deterioration of one of our major freshwater reserves. Decades of poorly planned infrastructure, weak environmental regulation, and alleged corruption have contributed to the discharge of untreated industrial effluents and agricultural wastewater into natural water bodies. Pollution associated with industrial areas such as Kotri and Nooriabad, along with wastewater carried through drainage systems such as the Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD), has placed enormous pressure on aquatic ecosystems.

Manchar Lake in Jamshoro is a prime example. Once celebrated as one of Asia’s largest natural freshwater lakes and recognised as a Ramsar site, it now faces serious environmental challenges, including pollution and deteriorating water quality. Increasing salinity and contamination threaten its ecological balance and the survival of aquatic life. The consequences extend beyond ecological damage to the livelihoods of the ancient Mohana fishing community, whose members have lived on boats for centuries. With their traditional livelihoods under threat, many face the prospect of displacement and migration to the already overcrowded and resource-strained settlements of Karachi.

This crisis is a stark indictment of the failure of wastewater treatment systems and the persistent neglect of wetland conservation by provincial irrigation and environmental departments.

Thus, these four disasters—the melting north, the drowning centre, the poisoned south, and the dying lakes—are not isolated events. They are four chapters of the same story: a state that treats the environment as an afterthought. Pakistan does not need more climate conferences alone; it needs enforceable zoning laws in the north, climate-resilient infrastructure in the centre, an effective marine emergency response system in the south, and strict, non-negotiable treatment of industrial effluents before they enter our lakes. Without these measures, we will continue to write obituaries for our own geography.