Accelerating the climate transition

AS the monsoon season approaches, Pakistan faces a familiar anxiety. The memory of the 2022 floods — and the 2025 flooding that again disrupted lives, livelihoods and public finances — remains raw. The government is right to be preparing early for this year’s monsoon. But preparedness, while essential, is not enough. Pakistan must now accelerate, as a national priority, the broader transition to a climate-resilient, low-carbon and inclusive economy.

The science leaves little room for complacency. The world remains off course to limit warming to 1.5°C. For Pakistan, the risks are especially severe. Warming in high mountain regions is expected to outpace the global average, threatening glaciers, downstream river systems, agriculture, cities and the most vulnerable within communities. For a country whose livelihood, economy and food security are tied so closely to the Indus Basin, this is not a distant environmental concern. It is a direct threat to growth, stability and lives.

The forthcoming 2nd Breathe Pakistan International Climate Change Conference — under the stark theme ‘Time Is Running Out: Confronting Pakistan’s Climate Crisis’ — offers a timely moment to build consensus on a whole of society pathway for climate action. As decision-makers and experts gather in Islamabad from around the world in pursuit of this goal, they should keep in mind three things that will be critical to delivering this transition that is so critical for Pakistan: strategic financing, coherent planning and effective coordination.

External climate finance is under strain, just as adaptation needs are rising. Pakistan must mobilise climate finance at a far greater scale. This is not only about securing more international support, though grants and concessional finance remain essential. It is also about increasing domestic resourcing from public and private sector mobilisation and public investment by sharpening the climate focus of disaster preparedness and adaptation into social and economic development spending. Using public resources to crowd in private capital. Delay is the costliest option. Rebuilding after each disaster is far more expensive than investing in preparedness and resilience now.

The cost of transition might be high, but the cost of inaction is bound to be far higher, reminds Mohamed Yahya

This means a practical financing mix: stronger public investment in critical sectors; more blended public-private partnerships in resilient infrastructure, water systems and ecosystem restoration; wider use of green bonds, debt swaps and other fiscal instruments; and closer work with financial institutions, banks and insurers to de-risk private investment in the low-carbon economy. Done well, this will not only finance domestic priorities; it will also strengthen Pakistan’s ability to unlock larger grants and concessional resources from global climate funds.

Coherent planning is the key to delivering on every aspect of Pakistan’s transition. Climate adaptation needs to be built into development plans that shape the economy. Pakistan already has a strong policy and legislative foundation. The National Determined Contribution (NDC 3.0) and National Adaptation Plan provide credible frameworks, and programmes contributing to the Living Indus Initiative show how nature-based solutions can support resilience at scale. But plans and legislation matter only if they lead to investments and actions. Disaster preparedness and adaptation now need to be embedded in sectoral and provincial planning, and reflected in budgets, not just planning documents.

Finally, robust, networked centre-of-government coordination is a vital element. Climate action cannot succeed if coordination is fragmented. Pakistan is not short of institutions or legal frameworks. It has already built important frameworks, including the Climate Change Act. What is needed now is tighter alignment, clearer accountability and stronger coordinated engagement with provincial governments and civil society.

As a national priority, climate resilience should be treated as a core economic governance issue that cuts across the whole of government. When institutions move together, location-specific interventions become more bankable, implementation becomes faster, and reform becomes more durable. Pakistan has shown that it can help shape the global climate conversation. The next test is whether it can turn that leadership into faster domestic delivery and impact. The real measure will be whether or not 2026 becomes the year Pakistan moved decisively from ambition to effective climate action. The cost of transition is high, but the cost of inaction will be far higher.

The writer is the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan.