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As the Hindu Kush Himalaya warms nearly three times faster than the global average, communities in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa live with the growing risk of sudden, destructive glacial lake outburst floods.
Electric vehicles are a real climate solution, but they were never the whole climate story. This article examines how public climate debate often focuses on visible emissions, such as petrol cars, while less visible sources of energy demand receive quieter scrutiny. For Pakistan and other developing countries, the lesson is not to reject global climate solutions, but to ask whether they fit local realities.
Pakistan’s demand for climate justice remains valid, but climate responsibility must also begin at home. This editorial argues that weak governance, poor planning, environmental neglect, and institutional failure are making the country more vulnerable and that domestic reform is essential to credible climate action.
Climate policy often changes with elections, budgets and political pressure, but climate impacts continue to build through heat, floods, water stress, crop damage and infrastructure strain. This editorial explains why unstable climate policy makes long term planning harder for farmers, cities, investors and vulnerable countries such as Pakistan.
Islamabad and Rawalpindi’s rapid real-estate expansion has turned open land, vegetation and natural recharge zones into concrete. Research shows the twin cities are becoming hotter, more water-stressed and more flood-prone as built-up areas expand, groundwater falls and urban heat island effects intensify.
Climate change is not a distant environmental problem. It is a mirror reflecting how we produce, consume, and live.
Researchers warn that dense construction, disappearing vegetation and heat-retaining surfaces are making Pakistan’s cities significantly hotter than surrounding areas, placing outdoor workers and vulnerable communities at growing health risk.
With an estimated 348 billion dollar adaptation bill and less than a tenth of pledged climate finance actually disbursed, Pakistan is beginning to shift from disaster response towards genuine resilience, but the gap remains vast.
Once known for its green belts and cool foothills, Islamabad is losing tree cover to rapid, often unregulated expansion, creating pockets of intense heat that are reshaping daily life and public health in the capital.
