climate change and pakistan essay

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Pakistan Must Adapt to Climate Change. But Who Will Help Us?

T he record-breaking mega-flood in August 2022 that impacted 33 million people in Pakistan brought home to the world the urgency and scale of the climate crisis afflicting developing countries. At the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference (COP 27), it triggered widespread worry among other countries about the state of preparedness many will have to gear up to—even if, like Pakistan, they remain negligible emitters of the greenhouse gases. In 2022, Pakistan’s pavilion at Sharm-al-Shaikh positioned not just the global connectedness of the crisis by pointing out that “what goes on in Pakistan will not stay in Pakistan,” it also became the hub of the climate finance deficits that are growing exponentially in inverse proportion to global emissions. This has led, in part, to the creation of the Loss and Damage (L&D) fund at the end of the conference.

Yet as G20’s energy ministers remained unable to agree on a roadmap to reduce emissions by July 2023 (even as COP28 approaches) the realization set in that many of us will remain in the frontline of the burn. Pakistan has been home for three successive years where on at least one day temperatures reached 53°C (127.4°F). The hope that we were working with needed a home-grown plan. As heatwaves coupled with slow global action transformed the earth into a red planet in the summer of 2023, Pakistan launched a National Adaptation Plan in July to chart a strategic whole-of government approach with a framework toolkit that allows it to protect its population.

For instance, the province of Sindh, which to this day stands transformed by the 2022 deluge, and recently saw evacuations in the coastal areas from cyclonic activity in a warming Arabian Sea, began its rehabilitation process by transferring new land titles to the women of afflicted households. In all such crises, the most vulnerable always remain the poorest, the women and children, impacted disproportionately by multiple crises of food insecurity, displacement, and disease.

That said, while Sindh is struggling to cope with a cascade of disasters, it will need not just the National Adaptation Plan, but the resources to transform municipal, rural, and agri-water governance for the dangerous decade ahead—all of which needs time, capacity, and liquidity. Similarly, the province of Balochistan has already declared a flood emergency, while the northern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is impacted too by a gathering storm.

Read More: ‘I Lost My Son in This Water a Few Days Ago.’ Photos of Pakistan’s Catastrophic Flooding

For countries drowning in extreme weather, exogenous shocks, and high public debt, where will this money come from? Especially in the amount that the World Bank in its 2022 Country Climate and Development Report calculated for Pakistan: a staggering $348 billion by 2030. This is just the number to stay resilient—to keep our heads above water and build sustainability into a climate-adaptive future. All this while a summer of fresh flooding and melting glaciers redefines our lives, our social and economic experiences, into a lifelong struggle to rebuild with resilience while we fight the climate devastations wreaking havoc again.

Who is coming to the rescue of such countries? While U.N. has been in the frontline of immediate relief, even its flash appeals globally remain under-funded. Structural reforms involve pain. We are willing to undergo more pain, especially for enabling resilience, but some amount of change has to come from the Bretton Woods system—the monetary management structure that controls the U.S., Canada, Australia, Western Europe, and Japan—meant to lead the world out of egregious inequality and now climate distress. The financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in developing countries has enlarged from $2.5 trillion in 2019 to $4.2 trillion in 2023. Add to it the cost of realizing climate goals, and the amount reaches a whopping $5.2 trillion annually .

Our National Adaption Plan (NAP) is designed to build climate-adaptation goals into every aspect of development planning. The international financial system must do the same. As we approach COP 28, the Global Goal on Adaptation remains under-capitalized, while the L&D fund is yet to start functioning. The U.N. Secretary General António Guterres made detailed recommendations in a press conference on July 27 that countries must operationalize and scale up the funding of renewables. Donor countries have been bilaterally supportive but they too need to fulfill their commitment to provide 0.7% of their Gross National Income as development assistance. Multilateral Development Banks should be recapitalized and be enabled to provide portfolio and budgetary support to developing countries, rather than project finance only. They should vastly expand grant and concessional lending to developing countries, enhance the vote and the voice of the developing countries in both International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and link the distribution of new IMF SDRs to development and climate goals.

The transition to a sustainable global economy will require an investment of around $1.5 trillion each year in the developing countries. Business as usual will certainly not work. A large part of this funding pool will have to come from the private sector, which will need new structural incentives to bring their leverage and capital to the business of bending development history. Vulnerable countries cannot attract investment in times of epochal climate distress, but they do need more than band-aid financing. We now need transformational milestones to building global consensus for a financing architecture that can face the 21st century’s rapidly changing conditions that challenge resilience while fueling crippling inequalities.

Critical assistance for the most climate vulnerable countries must not further burden the poor. Actions will be as important as pledges and plans at this point. A real message of change from global leaders would contribute substantially to the success of the forthcoming SDG Summit in September and COP28 in December, and restore trust in global cooperation and international solidarity. Our people are looking to us with renewed hope for action. We must not fail them.

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Pakistan Urgently Needs Significant Investments in Climate Resilience to Secure its Economy and Reduce Poverty

ISLAMABAD, November 10, 2022 —This year’s heatwave and devastating floods are a reminder that climate change-induced disasters can significantly set back Pakistan’s development ambitions and its ability to reduce poverty. These disasters have caused more than 1,700 deaths and displaced more than 8 million people. The damage to infrastructure, assets, crops, and livestock has also been massive, with more than $30 billion in damages and economic losses. The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for Pakistan released today concludes that the country needs fundamental shifts in its development path and policies, requiring substantial investments in people-centric climate adaptation and resilience, that will require international support.

“The recent flooding and humanitarian crisis provide a wake-up call for urgent action to prevent further devastation to the people of Pakistan and its economy due to climate change,” said Martin Raiser, World Bank Vice President for South Asia. “Accelerated climate actions can protect the economy from shocks and secure more sustainable and inclusive growth in Pakistan.”

The CCDR notes that the combined risks of extreme climate-related events, environmental degradation, and air pollution are projected to reduce Pakistan’s GDP by at least 18 to 20% by 2050. This will stall progress on economic development and poverty reduction.

“If we want to tackle climate change, we need to prioritize investing in adaptation to help prepare Pakistan for future climate-related calamities, which are growing in frequency and intensity,” said Hela Cheikhrouhou, IFC Regional Vice President for Middle East, Central Asia, Türkiye, Afghanistan and Pakistan . “ With the right policy frameworks, Pakistan has the opportunity to attract private investment to build its resilience, particularly in sectors such as water management, agriculture, urban infrastructure, municipal services, and housing.”

To improve adaptation to climate change and avoid high costs, the report recommends five priority transitions:

1. Transforming the Agri-Food System: Productivity in the agri-food system – the largest employer, particularly for poor and vulnerable households – has been plummeting due to the degradation of land, overuse of chemical inputs and water, and lack of research. And yields are projected to drop another 50% by 2050. To bolster rural incomes and strengthen food and water security, Pakistan needs to repurpose environmentally damaging subsidies, promote climate-smart and regenerative agriculture and livestock systems, and prioritize ecosystem restoration.

2. Building Resilient and Livable Cities: Pakistan’s population living in urban areas, already highly exposed to pollution and climate change, will increase from 37% in 2020 to 60% in 2050. To ensure cities become more liveable, urgent reforms are needed for more integrated land use planning and increased investments in municipal services and in energy efficiency and clean transportation. To this end, strong municipal governments, and the expansion of city finances via property taxation are critical.

3. Accelerating a Just Transition to Sustainable Energy and Low-carbon Transport: The energy sector is a critical enabler of economic development and poverty reduction. However, it is a huge drain on public finances and foreign exchange reserves and a major contributor to GHG emissions. Pakistan must prioritize reducing the cost of generation including through energy efficiency, ensuring cost-reflective tariffs and improved targeting of subsidies, while addressing technical and collection losses in transmission and distribution. Scaled-up investment in mass transit can avoid locking in highly polluting modes of transport.

4. Strengthening Human Capital to Achieve Sustained and Equitable Development and Climate Resilience: To address its human capital crisis, Pakistan needs to improve the management of water, sanitation, and hygiene, which is the main driver of child stunting, and reduce high fertility rates. Pakistan should also ensure universal access to quality education and expand its social-protection system by improving benefits, particularly for those at the highest risk.

5. Aligning Financing Policies, Incentives, and Institutions to Support Scale-up of Climate Actions: Implementing these policies and executing a climate-resilient and low-carbon development agenda will require total investment needs that amount to around 10% of the cumulative GDP up to 2030. Accelerating the ongoing reforms to expand domestic revenue mobilization, including raising new municipal and property taxes, as well as improving efficiency and targeting of subsidies for agriculture and energy while protecting the most vulnerable will help to finance a large part of the needed investments. Yet, this will not be enough. A comprehensive financing strategy, involving greater private sector involvement and significant international support will be essential to complement Pakistan’s own commitment towards resilient and inclusive development.

“Foreign private capital can play an important role in addressing the climate change challenges in Pakistan,”  said   Ethiopis Tafara, MIGA Vice President and Chief Risk, Legal and Administrative Officer.  “Sustaining flows of foreign direct investment that support climate mitigation and adaptation will contribute toward financing Pakistan’s low-carbon transition.”

Pakistan is not a significant contributor to global warming, but it is on a high-growth trajectory of carbon emissions linked to fossil fuel use. This is also a source of the country’s chronic fiscal stress and worsening air pollution. Therefore, climate actions that bring co-benefits to both adaptation and mitigation and contribute to improving development outcomes should have the highest priority.

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World Bank Group Country Climate and Development Reports

The World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Reports (CCDRs) are new core diagnostic reports that integrate climate change and development considerations. They will help countries prioritize the most impactful actions that can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and boost adaptation, while delivering on broader development goals. CCDRs build on data and rigorous research and identify main pathways to reduce GHG emissions and climate vulnerabilities, including the costs and challenges as well as benefits and opportunities from doing so. The reports suggest concrete, priority actions to support a low-carbon, resilient transition. As public documents, CCDRs aim to inform governments, citizens, the private sector, and development partners, and enable engagement with the development and climate agenda. CCDRs will feed into other core Bank Group diagnostics, country engagements and operations, and help attract funding and direct financing for high-impact climate action.

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United States Institute of Peace

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Pakistan’s Climate Challenges Pose a National Security Emergency

A whole-of-government approach is needed now before climate change exacerbates conflict in the country.

By: Jumaina Siddiqui

Publication Type: Analysis

Pakistan is in the midst of a terrible heatwave , with the temperatures in parts of the country exceeding 120 F. April was the hottest month in the past 61 years, until May came along and saw warmer temperatures. At least 65 people have reportedly died due to the heatwave, but the actual numbers are certainly higher, and it’s caused massive flooding and infrastructure damage in Gilgit-Baltistan, water shortages in Karachi and broader Sindh province, and placed greater demands on the country’s weak electrical grid. Despite monsoon rains beginning in late June — causing at least 77 deaths — many parts of the country still swelter. Pakistan should treat these climate disasters as a full-fledged national security emergency before they stoke conflict that adds further stress amid the country’s other numerous challenges.

Climate Challenges Could Stoke Conflict

For the past 20 years, Pakistan has consistently ranked among the top 10 most vulnerable countries on the Climate Risk Index, with 10,000 fatalities due to climate-related disasters and financial losses amounting to about $4 billion from 173 extreme weather events. These challenges threaten to spark climate-related conflict over resources — such as water — that have become scarce due to climate change impacts. Climate-related disasters like floods, heatwaves or tsunamis can also exacerbate tensions among groups who already have a history of conflict. Any of these scenarios would be a serious threat to Pakistan and have serious ramifications for any government in the immediate aftermath of a climate disaster or as part of efforts to mitigate future disasters.

This year’s heatwave further exacerbated food insecurity, which can undermine peace and stability, according to the United Nations. Scorching temperatures have damaged entire orchards and hurt wheat production across Pakistan, adversely impacting the livelihoods of many small farmers and rendering formerly arable land unusable for agriculture in some parts of the country. Already facing wheat shortages due to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Pakistan’s domestic wheat production this year will be reduced by 10% .

During Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s visit to the United States to attend a United Nations meeting on food security, he highlighted that the country is under threat of food, water and energy insecurity. Unfortunately, it is not just a threat anymore but a reality for Pakistan. Combined with soaring inflation and the country’s continued political instability, this is a recipe for disaster. All these trends are potential catalysts that could trigger climate-induced migration from rural areas to urban centers as Pakistanis seek employment and stable living conditions. This puts an additional strain on massive cities and urban infrastructure that already cannot manage their current population levels.

A Mixed Response

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has also taken notice of Pakistan’s climate change vulnerabilities. In a recent decision, the court noted that that in urban areas in particular, relevant government authorities should take into consideration “adaptation, climate resiliency and sustainability…[as] they are essential to actualize the fundamental rights of the people.”

While some subnational government agencies have been more effective in preparing for climate-related disasters, other have not. In Gilgit Baltistan, the heatwave caused a massive glacial flood, but thanks to continuous monitoring by the relevant local government authorities, people living in vulnerable locations were relocated to safer places before the floods. After the 2020 floods in Karachi, the provincial government decided to address the causes that lead to the severe flooding after the waters subsided. However, their heavy-handed actions — such as tearing down settlements along the nalas, or waterways, that should have drained the flood waters without considering proper plans to resettle or adequately compensate those displaced from the settlements — led to a number of protests from both communities and civil society activists.

It took this heatwave for the Sindh government to notice and take action against the water mafias controlling the city, even though this has been a problem for a decade or more. The water issue connects to the larger issue of natural resource usage and extraction throughout Pakistan, in particular the availability of water, whether it is for agricultural purposes or for consumption. The current heatwave has created an acute water crisis in Sindh, leading to inter-provincial tensions with Punjab — and it’s unclear if there is a resolution in sight .

Pakistan has tried to play a significant role on the international stage, participating in COP26 and signing the global methane pledge. The country is one of the world’s major methane emitters , predominately through its agricultural sector. How this commitment will impact this sector more broadly remains to be seen, especially as Pakistan seeks international financing to meet this commitment. While climate-smart agricultural practices generally save money in the long run, it is important to understand how these changes would impact large-scale farmers and their workers, the latter of whom are one of the most economically disadvantaged groups in country. 

The previous Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government had a strong advocate in Malik Amin Aslam, who served as the special advisor to the prime minster on climate change. The PTI government made significant strides in their efforts to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change such as committing to having 60% of energy coming from “clean” sources and to having electric vehicles making up 30% of the market by 2030.

The current coalition government, led by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), has smartly continued the trend of strong leadership on climate change by appointing Senator Sherry Rehman , a member of the Pakistan Peoples Party, as minster for climate change. While leadership on this issue is imperative, it is equally important that there is a tangible and sustained collaboration and coordination between the national and provincial governments to develop a roadmap to address the impacts of climate change on the country. Because of devolution in Pakistan, issues like water, food and agriculture, and environment are ones where the provinces have the authority to pass governing legislation, while climate change is a federal issue. This disconnect must be resolved through a more robust system for interprovincial coordination. 

What Pakistan Needs

The PML-N government’s announcement to set up a climate change task force in response to the heatwave is a step in the right direction. But if Pakistan is serious about tackling climate change and investing in mitigation and adaption efforts, what is needed is an overarching framework to coordinate this response. One recent model to look to is Pakistan’s National Command and Operation Center (NCOC), which led the country’s COVID-19 response. A climate-focused NCOC would ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to address the impacts of climate change on the country and appropriate coordination takes place that builds political consensus. This would require relevant provincial and national bodies to come together to work develop a common action plan to address the internal impacts of climate change. Furthermore, the NCOC would spearhead the implementation  of Pakistan’s National Determined Contributions under the Paris Accords because some of these efforts would need provincial buy-in.   

It is unclear if Pakistan’s new climate change task force will carry the same weight as the COVID-19 NCOC. But if it is to succeed, then learning from the successes and failures of the NCOC model is imperative. The COVID-19 NCOC took a whole-of-government approach to tackle the crisis head on. In the beginning there was significant tension between the federal and provincial governments on measures such as the timing and scope of lockdowns and whether provinces had the legal mandate to dictate how businesses functioned during the pandemic. However, in the interest of combatting the pandemic, a delicate understanding between and cooperation among political parties in power in different provinces did eventually occur. 

National and provincial governments are working in lockstep right when it comes to energy conservation. But this cooperation will need to be sustained over the long haul. Unlike COVID-19 where we have vaccines and other mitigation tools, climate change is a significantly more complex challenge that will require long-term coordination and commitment. Almost PKR 10 billion (approximately $50 million) has been allocated to the Ministry of Climate Change under the 2022-23 national budget, a decrease from the PKR 14 billion in the 2021-22 national budget. This change is likely due to the economic situation in the country, but still shows a commitment to the issue and continuity between governments as the PTI government’s signature “10 Billion Tree Tsunami” project received an earmark. 

Alongside these domestic efforts, both the United States and Pakistan should hold a second meeting of the U.S.-Pakistan Climate and Environment Working Group, following the first meeting held in September 2021. This working group could serve as the springboard to begin repairing and resetting the tenuous U.S.-Pakistan relationship as addressing climate change and promoting regional stability is in the interest of both nations.   

All mainstream political parties agree that climate change is threat to Pakistan’s social and economic stability. Addressing climate change in Pakistan truly requires a “ war-footing ” and a whole-of-government approach. Otherwise, the consequences of inaction or improper action could foster greater turmoil and strife for all levels of Pakistani society. 

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Pakistan’s ‘climate carnage beyond imagination’, UN chief tells General Assembly

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The people of Pakistan are the victims of “a grim calculus of climate injustice”, Secretary-General António Guterres told the UN General Assembly on Friday, reminding that while the country was responsible for less than one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, it is paying a “supersized price for man-made climate change”.

During a full session of the UN’s most representative body on the country’s devastating floods, he recalled last month’s visit where he saw “a level of climate carnage beyond imagination”.

He described flood waters covering a landmass three times the total area of his own country, Portugal, saying that many lost their homes, livestock, crops and “their futures”.

“ Lives were washed away ”, he spelled out.

"Today, it is Pakistan. Tomorrow it could be any of our countries" - @antonioguterres says climate chaos is knocking on everyone’s door and we must step up and answer the call for the people of #Pakistan UN Photo/Cia Pak https://t.co/pdUucOvnub United Nations Photo UN_Photo October 7, 2022

Worse to come

While the rains have ceased and water is beginning to recede, many areas in the south remain inundated and, with winter approaching, the situation is going from bad to worse.

“Pakistan is on the verge of a public health disaster”, warned the top UN official, pointing to threats of cholera, malaria and dengue fever claiming “far more lives than the floods”.

He painted a picture of nearly 1,500 devastated health facilities, two million damaged or destroyed homes and more than two million families without their possessions.

“ Many have no shelter as winter approaches ”.

Cascading calamities

At the same time, the scale of crop and livestock destruction is “creating a food crisis today and putting the planting season in jeopardy tomorrow”, continued Mr. Guterres.

“Severe hunger is spiking. Malnutrition among children and pregnant lactating women is rising. The number of children out of school is growing. Heartache and hardship – especially for women and girls – is mounting,” he elaborated.

Moreover, more than 15 million people could be pushed into poverty.

The effects of the floods will be felt not just for days or months but will linger in Pakistan for years to come. 

Massive support needed

Working with the Pakistan Government to convene a pledging conference to provide rehabilitation and reconstruction support, the UN chief urged donor countries, international organizations, the private sector and civil society to fully support these efforts.

Meanwhile, the Organization launched the Pakistan Floods Response Plan calling for $816 million – a surge of $656 million from the initial appeal – to respond to the most urgent needs through next May.

“But this pales in comparison to what is needed on every front – including food, water, sanitation…and health support”, said the Secretary-General.

G20’s ‘Moral responsibility’

As the calendar moves quickly to next UN climate conference ( COP27 ) in November, he said “the world is moving backwards [as] greenhouse gas emissions are rising along with climate calamities”. 

The UN chief stressed that COP 27 must be the place where these trends are reversed, serious action on loss and damage taken, and vital funding found for adaptation and resilience. 

Reminding that the G20 leading industrialized nations drive 80 per cent of climate-destroying emissions, he called it their “moral responsibility” to help Pakistan recover, adapt and build resilience to disasters “supercharged by the climate crisis”.

‘We must act now’

Noting that a third of Pakistan had been deluged , Mr. Guterres said that many island States face “the very real prospect of their entire homeland going under”. 

“Communities everywhere are looking down the barrel of climate-driven destruction,” he said. “We must act – and we must act now”. 

While this time it was Pakistan, the Secretary-General warned that tomorrow, “it could be any of our countries and our communities”.

“ Climate chaos is knocking on everyone’s door , right now,” he concluded. “This global crisis demands global solidarity and a global response”.

‘Litmus test of solidarity’

General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi, underscored the importance of time, as “the price we are paying for delays rises each day”.

He said that today, the world faced a “litmus test of solidarity” in how Member States react to Pakistan’s plight.

“This is a tragedy of epic proportions” that requires “immediate interventions,” to prevent a “permanent emergency”.

Rebuilding together

The Assembly President highlighted the need to be better prepared as droughts and rains return.

More than ever, international relief efforts must focus on transformative solutions, he said. “ Adaptation and resilience are the seeds of sustainability ”.

Mr. Kőrösi urged the ambassadors to “make use of science and solidarity…to enhance our crisis management capacities…[to] rebuild together”.

Appealing for help

Meanwhile the UN refugee agency, UNHCR , is urgently seeking to help more than 650,000 refugees and members of their host communities affected by Pakistan’s calamitous flooding.

Noting that the scale of devastation is “hard to comprehend,” spokesperson Matthew Saltmarsh told a press briefing in Geneva on Friday that as Pakistan faces “a colossal challenge” to respond to the climate disaster, more support is need “for the country and its people, who have generously hosted Afghan refugees for over four decades”.

He reported on the latest estimates of the unprecedented rainfall and flooding, recorded at least 1,700 deaths; 12,800 injured, including at least 4,000 children; some 7.9 million displacements; and nearly 600,000 living in relief sites.

On ‘the frontlines’

“Pakistan is on the frontlines of the climate emergency,” said Mr. Saltmarsh.

UNHCR seeks additional funds to address immediate needs and assist in early recovery processes.

“It could take months for flood waters to recede in the hardest-hit areas, as fears rise over threats of waterborne diseases and the safety of millions of affected people, 70 per cent of whom are women and children,” he said, reminding that “ environmental sustainability will remain central to the response ”.

Turning Concern into Action: Understanding Climate Change Attitudes in Pakistan

Juan d. barón.

Pakistan is grappling with the profound impacts of climate change, such as shifting weather patterns and catastrophic floods (Baron et all, 2022) . Unfortunately, these impacts are projected to escalate, with forecasts suggesting that climate-related events, environmental degradation, and air pollution may cause Pakistan's GDP to shrink by 18-20% by 2050 . This alarming statistic underscores the need to address climate change and mitigate its effects on people and their livelihoods. Even though developing countries like Pakistan may not be the primary contributors to climate change, acknowledging and confronting its fallout is indispensable, especially for combatting pressing local issues like air pollution and smog.

The necessity to adapt and the implications of actions for local issues make it essential to understand people's prioritization of addressing climate change, their trusted sources of information, and the motivating factors behind their actions. To answer these questions, we conducted a phone survey of a random sample of 2,000 parents in Pakistan who have access to a cell phone and have school-aged children using random digit dialing. The key findings have been released in a recent policy note .

The results of the survey show that most people, regardless of gender or education level, are highly concerned about the impact of climate change on children, with over 80 percent expressing concern. The survey shows that although people are worried about climate change and its effects, it is not always their top priority. When asked to choose the top three issues facing Pakistan, less than a quarter of participants chose climate change. This suggests that while people are worried about climate change, it may not be their priority issue.

In the survey, when a random subset of people were presented with economic issues first, there was a 4-percentage point (statistically significant) rise in the likelihood of individuals considering climate change among top three issues of Pakistan, compared to when social issues were presented first. This prioritization of climate change when seen as an economic issue is more pronounced among individuals with higher educational attainment (see Figure 1).

How knowledgeable are people about climate information and whom do they trust?

The survey looked at people's knowledge of and trust in different sources of information about climate change. Those with higher levels of education are more informed about climate change.  For example, only 47 percent of illiterate people believe that the earth is getting warmer due to human activity, compared to 60 percent of those with higher education or above. Findings also show significant distrust overall in traditional sources of information, with the least educated being the most likely to distrust these sources. Among these sources, news media leads as the most important source of information while less than 1/5 trust scientists. This highlights the lack of trust in traditional climate change leadership, including the possibility of misinformation from the media. This poses a significant challenge to educating people about climate change.

How are people addressing climate change in Pakistan?

Families want their children to learn about climate change, but they are relying on the schools to fulfill this role. Almost all households in the survey said they support education about climate in schools.  However, less than half talk about it at home. This shows that schools could play a role in promoting conversations and educating families about climate change.

The survey reveals that, despite frequently adopting money-saving measures such as turning off lights (76%) to combat climate change, people exhibit less enthusiasm for endorsing more impactful actions like using public transport (36%) or cutting down on meat consumption. Reducing the disconnect between concern and action requires understanding people's beliefs e.g. education and awareness campaigns highlighting practical benefits, like savings or health improvements.

Three crucial insights emerge from the survey findings for policymakers. Firstly, economic aspects drive people's concern about climate change. Secondly, skepticism exists, especially among less educated individuals relying on traditional information sources. Lastly, even concerned individuals might not act due to inconvenience or lifestyle changes. Policymakers should focus on removing barriers and offering economic incentives to encourage active participation in climate action.

• Climate Change

Senior Economist, Education Global Practice, World Bank Group

Economist, South Asia

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Climate change in rural Pakistan: evidence and experiences from a people-centered perspective

• Original Article
• Open access
• Published: 06 October 2021
• Volume 16 , pages 1999–2011, ( 2021 )

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• Amber Ajani   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6635-4042 1 &
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Pakistan is home to a wide range of geographical landscapes, each of which faces different climate change impacts and challenges. This article presents findings from a National Geographic Society funded project, which employed a people-centered, narratives-based approach to study climate impacts and adaptation strategies of people in 19 rural study sites in four provinces of Pakistan ( N  = 108). The study looked at six climate-related stressors—changes in weather patterns, floods, Glacial Lake Outburst Floods, drought, heat waves, and sea-level rise—in the coastal areas of Sindh, the desert of Thar, the plains of Punjab, and the mountains of Hunza, Gilgit, and Chitral. Speaking to people at these frontlines of climate change revealed much about climate suffering and trauma. Not only is the suffering induced by losses and damages to property and livelihood, but climate impacts also take a heavy toll on people’s psycho-social wellbeing, particularly when they are displaced from their homes. The findings further demonstrate that people try to adapt in various ways, for instance by altering their agricultural practices, but they face severe barriers to effective adaptation action. Understanding people’s perceptions of climate change and incorporating their recommendations in adaptation planning can help policy-makers develop a more participatory, inclusive, and holistic climate resilience framework for the future.

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Introduction

Recent IPCC reports have shown that the impacts of climate change can already be observed on natural and human systems (IPCC 2018 , 2019 ; van der Geest and Warner 2020 ). Rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and increased frequency of extreme weather events due to climate change are adversely affecting food and livelihood security and leading to land degradation and increased displacement (Zommers et al. 2016 ; IPCC 2018 , 2019 ). An estimated 971 million people worldwide currently live in places with high or very high exposure to climate hazards (Global Peace Index 2019 ). Many of the most at-risk populations reside in Least Developed Countries, and within populations, women, the young, elderly and poor are the most disadvantaged and vulnerable to the effects of climate change (IPCC 2018 , 2019 ). Pakistan is among the top nine countries that face the highest risk of climate hazards (Global Peace Index 2019 ).

People in different parts of the world perceive and experience climate impacts in unique ways. While there is a large volume of studies about impacts of climate change, there is a dearth of studies that shed light on people’s diverse perceptions and experiences (Ayeb-Karlson et al. 2016 ). This paper studies the impacts of climate change in Pakistan through people’s accounts of their lived experiences. Pakistan has a diverse range of geographical landscapes which face different challenges in the context of climate change. To reflect this diversity, this study recorded accounts of people from the coastal areas of Sindh, the desert of Thar, the plains of Punjab and the mountain communities of Hunza, Gilgit and Chitral to understand their unique struggles, suffering, and adaptation practices.

Climate change in Pakistan

Pakistan has been ranked the fifth most affected country in the world due to extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018 (Eckstein et al. 2020 ). Pakistan’s economy relies heavily on agriculture (Rehman et al. 2015 ), and any changes in temperature and disruptions in water availability and monsoon patterns can wreak havoc on the livelihoods of millions of people. Impacts of climate change and extreme weather exacerbate the already severe problems of poverty and food security in the country. From 1998 to 2018, Pakistan witnessed 152 extreme weather events, lost 9989 lives and suffered economic losses worth $3.8 billion (Abubakar 2020 ).

A substantial body of literature exists on climate change impacts in Pakistan, especially in terms of food security (Gorst et al. 2018 ; Tariq et al. 2014 ; Asif 2013 ; Rasul et al. 2011 ; Siddiqui et al. 2012 ; Ahmed and Schmit 2011 ). These studies show that climate impacts in Pakistan have started to manifest through a rise in temperature, unpredictable rainfall, accelerated glacial melt, and a negative impact on crop productivity. However, little is known about how people in Pakistan perceive the changes and extremes in the climate, how it impacts their lives and livelihoods, and what actions they take to cope and adapt. And even less is known about the limitations and constraints that people face while trying to deal with gradual climatic changes as well as sudden-onset disasters. This study aims to fill that gap using a people-centered and narratives-based approach that sheds light on the lived experiences of people at the frontlines of climate change in Pakistan.

Need for a narratives-focused people-centered approach

It is crucial to first understand peoples’ attitudes, experiences, and behavioral responses to the current climate change impacts if we wish to build and enhance the future resilience of communities (Oakes 2019 ). Active involvement of local stakeholders, particularly those most vulnerable to climate change, is fundamental to enhance climate change decision-making and governance across all sectors and scales (IPCC 2019 ).

In climate change and energy research, stories and narratives can provide different and unique perspectives when compared with other traditional forms of data. Narratives can bring to light insights, constraints, misconceptions, beliefs, experiences, or perspectives that commonly exist but may have been systematically under-acknowledged. A people-centered research approach and methodology transforms who speaks, who gets heard, and even who hears, compared to more standard data collection forms. The stories that respondents share about their lived experiences with climate change transcend disciplinary and sectoral jargon and boundaries and connect diverse stakeholders to foster collaboration and collective action (Moezzi et al. 2017 ).

Given the transdisciplinary nature of climate change, offering diverse perspectives using a people-centered and narratives-focused approach can help foster understanding and collaboration between actors for context-specific climate action and policy changes. This is important, because climate impacts vary based on context, sector, geography, and resource capacity. In addition, highlighting climate change narratives of under-represented people from developing countries is crucial to provide a more holistic picture of the global climate impacts and the different adaptation needs in different contexts and at different scales.

Research objectives

This study aims to describe and analyze how climate change is affecting individuals’ lives, livelihoods and human potential in diverse geographical locations in Pakistan, such as coastal areas, deserts, flood plains and mountainous regions. Specifically, it looks at how people perceive the changes in the local climate, how it affects them, what they do to cope and adapt, and what constraints they encounter in the implementation of effective response measures. The paper presents qualitative, people-centered, and narratives-based findings to understand the impacts of climate change in Pakistan. The insights offered in the study can be valuable to regional and international communities dealing with similar climate stressors and constraints. This study identified and focused on six main climate stressors affecting various areas of Pakistan:

Changes in weather patterns

Glacial Lake Outburst Floods

Sea-level rise.

Methodology

This study was conducted as part of a project funded by a grant from the National Geographic Society. For this study, the researchers interviewed a total of 108 respondents, which included 97 community members (78 men and 19 women) and 11 environmental experts (10 men and 1 woman) from across the country. The research team tried to interview as many women as men, but this was not possible due to the highly patriarchal culture in the study sites. The community members included fishermen, farmers, orchard farmers, pastoralists, school teachers, community health workers and social workers. The respondents were selected after consultations with local collaborators from each area, while some were identified during the community interview sessions. It was ensured that each respondent was a native of the area and reflected a diversity of socio-economic backgrounds, livelihood activities and climate change experiences. The methodology employed included a combination of semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions. The open-ended questions in the interviews allowed people to share their stories and lived experiences regarding climate change.

Before the interview, participants were given a general overview of the project and the intended use of the research findings and materials. The interviews were conducted in Urdu and each interview lasted between 30 and 90 min. In the areas where Urdu was poorly understood and spoken (e.g., in Badswat and Bumburet), we worked with local collaborators who helped us with translation (from Brushiski and Khowar into Urdu, respectively). The audio of each interview was recorded after taking verbal consent from the participants. Since the project was funded by the National Geographic Society, the participants also signed a media release form consenting to the publication of their stories, ideas, and photographs for non-commercial use. All research data were recorded using audio recorders, phone cameras, and notebooks. The interviews were transcribed and translated into English after each field visit and later a thematic analysis of the interviews was carried out.

Research sites

The research sites were selected to cover a wide range of ecosystems and geographic landscapes in the country to examine the impacts of climatic changes and extremes on climate-sensitive livelihoods (e.g., rain-fed agriculture, orchard farming, fishing, herding). The selection of sites was based on previous field experience and recommendations of environmental experts and community focal points during a pilot study for this research project. The geographic spread and diversity of the study sites helped us cover the main climatic stressors that Pakistan faces, such as droughts, floods, sea-level rise, glacial melt, increased heat waves and changing rainfall patterns.

The project team conducted research at 19 locations in 11 districts in 4 provinces of Pakistan—Sindh, Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Gilgit-Baltistan (Table 1 ). Footnote 1

In this section, we look at the six most commonly experienced climatic stressors in Pakistan. For each stressor, we first look at how respondents in different parts of the country perceive the changes in its frequency and severity. Then, we describe how these climatic stressors impact on people’s lives, livelihoods, and safety. This is followed by an analysis of the actions respondents take to cope and adapt and the constraints they face in dealing with these stressors. The results section also discusses other stressors that—according to the study respondents—exacerbate climate change impacts. It ends with the recommendations shared by the respondents for improving climate resilience and policy in their respective areas.

Climate change directly influences weather patterns, especially precipitation. With rising temperatures, there is greater surface evaporation leading to a greater concentration of water vapor in the atmosphere which results in heavier downpours. This can cause devastating floods when it rains in the mountainous areas (Trenberth 2011 ). Alternatively, global warming can exacerbate drought conditions in arid areas due to higher evaporation.

People in all study areas had noticed the changing weather patterns and talked about the lack of rainfall as well as the changes in temperatures and onset of seasons in their areas.

Observations about the unpredictability of rain were shared by respondents from Punjab highlighting its impacts on harvesting times and crop yields:

“For the past few years, the rain has not come on time and the winds have become more aggressive. This has caused damage to our crops. Before, we used to cut the crop 10-15 days earlier, but the rains got late this year (2019). The rains have really become unpredictable now.” – [Hadil Sera, Male, Depalpur, Okara, 28 April 2019]

Farmers’ survival depends on the rains and any change in their timing or intensity can jeopardize their livelihoods and plunge them further into a cycle of debt.

Precipitation patterns have also changed in the mountainous regions, as described by a respondent from Chitral:

“About 10 to 15 years back, there used to be at least 3 or 4 feet of snowfall in Booni. If I tell you about last year, there was no snow during the whole winter. Even rainfall patterns have changed. Because of it, now there are different kinds of diseases that affect the local fruits, crops and vegetables.” – [Imtiaz Alam, Male, Booni, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

This is an example of how changing weather patterns are leading to crop damage and providing more favorable conditions for new pests to emerge. Fruit from Chitral is exported all across Pakistan and abroad, so these crop losses can translate into significant losses to farmer incomes and export revenues.

The impacts of the changing weather patterns can also be observed on the reduced quality and yields of crops and delayed harvesting, as mentioned by one of the respondents:

“We used to harvest all our wheat in August and September. Now it's delayed because of the weather. The harvest also doesn't ripen properly. We cut and gather it, but the wheat is not of as good quality as before.” – [Nargis Iqbal, Female, Passu, Hunza, 7 May 2019]

Not only do untimely rains put people’s livelihoods at risk, but they also pose an additional threat of flash floods even in areas that were previously considered safe,

“The monsoon has shifted in Chitral. Now, because of this change in rainfall, floods have started to affect even the safe zones. Last year, there was a flash flood in my village, Gasht. It was very surprising because no such incident had occurred there before.” – [Wali Mohammad, Male, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

In some areas such as Kalash valley in Chitral, people rely on snowfall and rainfall to replenish water supplies and provide electricity. With reduced or unpredictable precipitation, their water and energy security are at risk,

“If there is no snow by December, we grapple with water shortage here as the springs shrink. After December if there's less water due to reduced or no snowfall, we also experience electricity shortage and load-shedding as every village depends on small hydropower plants.” – [Nazar Gill, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

In addition, as a result of the warmer weather and changed rainfall patterns, new crop diseases are emerging in many areas,

“The cotton crop is getting affected by the pink bollworm disease that was never seen here before. In the past 5 years, it has suddenly exploded due to the heat and erratic rainfall.”- [Hasan Anwar, Male, Depalpur, Okara, 28 April 2019]

People confronted with different climate stressors are adapting in different ways. For example, farmers have started growing new/different varieties of crops in Chitral and Gilgit as the climate warms,

“In the village ahead, growing wheat was not possible but these days because of the change in climate, wheat is being cultivated there.” – [Hanif, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

Some people also reported an increase in yields due to a warmer climate,

“There is more harvest of walnuts, pine nuts and pears and apples. Yields have increased because of the heat.”- [Muhammad Wazir, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

While farmers have been noticing these changes in rain patterns in recent years, they often lack the necessary knowledge and support to adapt. They also do not have access to crop insurance or alternate livelihood options. This leaves them and the agricultural sector extremely vulnerable to the current and future impacts of climate change.

Over the years, the occurrence of major floods has increased in Pakistan, causing huge losses to life and property. In August 2020, for example, just 3 days of heavy monsoon rains killed at least 90 people and damaged at least a thousand homes across Pakistan (Guardian 2020 ).

Flash floods due to heavy monsoons tend to generally affect Punjab and Sindh provinces, while floods resulting from hill torrents tend to affect mainly the hilly areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Baluchistan and Gilgit Baltistan (Sayed and Gonzales 2014 ). Most of the flooding occurs in late summer months during the monsoon season but can also occur due to glacial lake outbursts caused by high summer temperatures (covered later).

In Pakistan, exposure and vulnerability to floods and other hazards are very high. A large part of the population lives in high-risk areas with inadequate infrastructure and warning systems, where literacy is low and poverty levels are high with minimal social safety nets in place, and there is little awareness at both government and community levels about disaster prevention and preparedness (Sayed and Gonzalez 2014 ).

The shifting monsoon rains and increased melting of glaciers are leading to more frequent and intense floods in Hunza causing land erosion, as described by one respondent:

“Every year the river near our house floods due to increased glacial melt from the Batura glacier and heavier rains and it takes away a part of our land.” – [Nargis Iqbal, Female, Passu, Hunza, 7 May 2019]

In the North of Pakistan, people’s lands are their source of livelihood security. Many communities live in remote locations cut off from the main cities and commercial areas, so growing crops for subsistence and income is the only way to survive. Therefore, when a flood destroys their land, their sole source of survival and livelihood is jeopardized,

“When the 2015 floods hit, people's expensive trees, like walnut trees, were all destroyed. You don't see the bigger trees now. They were near the river and were all taken away. Every man who previously had 15 sacks of walnuts now barely has one.” – [Muhammad Wazir, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

The floods also destroy crucial infrastructure which can hamper safety/rehabilitation efforts,

“In 2015 when there was a flood, the whole road was ruined, and even going by foot to Ayon or Chitral town was difficult. People's houses were washed away; their land and houses had to be abandoned and they had to move to other areas.” – [Meerkai, Female, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

The monsoon rains in August 2020 left hundreds of households without drinking and irrigation water in Chitral (DAWN 2020 ).

As a result of frequent floods, some people have been forced to relocate to other areas to avoid repeated property damage and risk to lives,

“My shop and agricultural land were completely destroyed by the flood; my house was also partially damaged. The government told us not to rebuild our house in the same area as there was a high risk of flooding. I, therefore, had to migrate from my home of 40 years to a new village and start life from scratch.” - [Musharraf Khan, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

It is important to note that the cost of the floods is not merely physical—it also takes a mental toll on people, as related by a respondent in Chitral:

“After the flood, I became mentally ill. Occasionally, I would hear voices of people screaming about approaching floods and I would scream and run away. I would also wake up in the middle of the night, screaming. A person is left mentally distraught after these floods. It is very psychologically disturbing.” – [Sonia Kanwal, Female, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

The climate disasters can not only disturb the psychological wellbeing of individuals but may also weaken community ties,

“Before the floods, all our families lived together. We would gather frequently and enjoy hanging out with all our cousins. Now, after the flood we have all dispersed. Some have rebuilt houses on this side of the river while some have left the area altogether. We don’t have the same community as before.” – [Sonia Kanwal, Female, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

Without proper warning systems in place, people live with a sense of insecurity and fear during the summer months, as described by one respondent from Chitral:

“In June and July, we don't sleep at night. We stay up till 1 or 2 am and keep checking the river as it is right next to our house. After the 2015 floods, we are afraid. We don't want the flood to take us away. We also keep our documents ready so that when someone calls informing us of an incoming flood, we can just take them and go.” – [Imtiaz Ali Shah, Male, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

To improve precautionary measures after the 2015 flood in Reshun, the district government ensured that no construction was allowed within 100 feet of the riverbank. Prior to this restriction, people would immediately rebuild their homes by the river,

“A higher, more stable protection wall has now been built along the river. Since the old trees were ripped away by the flood, new trees have also been planted along the river so they can prevent flood water from flowing over the protection wall” – [Imtiaz Ali Shah, Male, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

It was observed that in many disaster-prone areas, there was no formal early warning system in place. For example, in Reshun valley, one of the respondents shared how they warn each other about floods:

“People who live higher up the mountain can tell early on that a flood is coming. They use a torch light to warn people living downstream. A lot of herders also move up the mountains from July to September because there is more pasture for the livestock. From there, they shine a light if they see or hear a flood approaching.” – [Sonia Kanwal, Female, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

Where available, disaster awareness campaigns and informal early warning systems were mostly run by community organizations and NGOs. Most of the time government interventions and support are only activated after a disaster has occurred. One of the respondents working for an NGO describes the disaster preparedness efforts in Chitral in the following way:

“Currently, we run monsoon awareness activities. We give people early warnings through announcements in masjids and jamat khanas. Footnote 2 The message is also spread through social media, and the local radio stations. In case of bad weather, our volunteers also send out information via a community WhatsApp group.” - [Wali Mohammad, Male, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

Glacial lake outburst floods

A Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) occurs when a lake formed by glacial melt overflows as the ice dam holding it suddenly bursts resulting in catastrophic flooding in downstream areas. As the climate warms, more and more glaciers around the world are experiencing increased melting (Zemp and Haeberli 2007 ).

Pakistan is home to three mountain ranges in the north, namely Himalayas, Karakoram and Hindukush (Ashraf et al. 2012 ), and has 7253 known glaciers, with 543 in the Chitral Valley alone. These glaciers feed rivers that represent 75% of the stored-water supply in the country (Craig 2016 ).

Pakistan’s glaciers are fast receding due to climate change, especially those at lower elevations, including in the Hindu Kush Mountain range in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (Craig 2016 ). Climate change is also increasing the risk of glacier surges Footnote 3 and formation of glacial lakes in Pakistan, especially in the Karakoram Mountain range (Quincy et al. 2011 ). The glaciers in the region have revealed irregular behavior and lack of stability during the last 5 decades. GLOFs pose increasingly serious threats to human lives, infrastructure, property, and livelihoods, particularly in the Karakoram region (Shah et al. 2019 ).

On 17 July 2018, Badswat and Bilhanz villages in Immit Valley in Gilgit-Baltistan were hit by a glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) which killed two people, damaged over 40 houses, and submerged part of the Karakoram Highway, leaving around ten villages isolated (Payne 2018 ),

“When the flood came in the evening, we quickly evacuated to the mountains to save our lives, but our houses, cattle, land, everything got swept away by the water. It came so suddenly.” – [Janaan Khan, Male, Badswat, Gilgit, 9 May 2019] “After our homes were destroyed by glacial outburst flood, we had to live in tents for months. Living with 8-10 people in one tent in the harsh November cold was the most difficult thing I had to do in my life.” – [Janaan Khan, Male, Badswat, Gilgit, 9 May 2019]

When the research team visited the area in May 2019, Janaan Khan and other Badswat GLOF affectees were still living in temporary shelters.

As GLOFs also move huge boulders, rocks, and sediments, they can damage essential water and energy infrastructure, such as the 2010 GLOF did in the village of Booni in Chitral,

“When a glacier bursts, our whole system of water channels is affected, and everything is swept away. After the 2010 GLOF, there was no drinking water available. People who lived by the stream, their houses got badly damaged. Because of this, some people have left permanently.” – [Imtiaz Alam, Male, Booni, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

The surging of Shishpar glacier, called a ‘ disaster-in-the-making ’ by one respondent, had already damaged infrastructure in Hunza:

“The Shishpar glacier in Hassanabad surged in 2018 and blocked the drainage channel, forming a lake behind it. It has caused a lot of damage to infrastructure and has blocked the source of Aliyabad’s irrigation channel. If it continues to surge further, it can impact drinking water supplies and cause a major GLOF event.” – [Deedar Karim, Male, Aga Khan Agency for Habitat, Gilgit, 5 May 2019]

Oftentimes, GLOF-affected areas are destroyed to the extent that people are forced to migrate and rebuild a life elsewhere. People who can make the choice to migrate do so on their own, often without any government support. However, the effectiveness of migration as an adaptation strategy is often limited. After migration many remain in risk-prone situations, because truly safe places are often not accessible to them or because such places are unsuitable because of lack of water and arable land,

“This area I’ve migrated to isn’t safe either. There is a riverbed here and should a flood occur, we are in its path, so it is just a matter of time or fate.” – [Musharraf Khan, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

Many people are not able to migrate because of a lack of resources or a lack of support from the government. This was seen in Sonoghar valley, Chitral where people decided to rebuild their life in a high flood-risk zone after a major GLOF event in 2007,

“The government and geologists told us not to repopulate this area as it is very dangerous. They told us to plant trees here instead. But the government gave us nothing- no land or compensation. So, we all shifted back. Where else can we go?” – [Sahib Faraz, Male, Sonoghar, Chitral, 3 May 2019]

Another respondent from Reshun valley shared:

“We're still at risk. People here are quite poor and cannot afford to make a house somewhere else. There's land elsewhere but there's water and more facilities here than other places. This has been my home since I was a child. I can't just leave it. So, we live with the risk.” – [Imtiaz Ali Shah, Male, Reshun, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

One of the reasons most people cannot afford to relocate without government assistance or compensation is that land in Chitral is scarce and expensive. Therefore, they end up rebuilding their homes in the same location, making a conscious decision to accept the risk in the hope that the next flood will not affect them again.

Climate change and overexploitation of water resources exacerbate the frequency, severity and duration of drought events and associated impacts (Miyan 2015 ; Wilhite 2005 ). Drought is a common phenomenon in Pakistan, known to occur at least thrice every decade (Anjum et al. 2012 ). From the early 2000 onwards (Miyan 2015 ), severe droughts in the country have mainly affected the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan (Ashraf and Routray 2015 ).

Droughts tend to worsen food insecurity in semi-arid countries like Pakistan, where the economy depends on agriculture. Droughts can trigger undue migration, and cause famine and deaths (Miyan 2015 ). Whereas in some parts of Pakistan, excessive rainfall is causing floods, in other parts, there is not enough rain.

People in the desert of Thar have been noticing the increasing heat stress and water scarcity in the recent years:

“The heat is increasing every year. Intense hot weather has already arrived in April this year (2019). It used to rain more in the past, now it hasn’t rained properly in years.” – [Muhammad Saleem Khoso, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

Prolonged drought and increasing temperatures are a cause of severe water shortages in arid areas of Pakistan such as Thar,

“We don’t even have drinking water in the city. The livestock and animals are dying because they don’t have water to drink. If you go and see the wells, you will see some water only at the depth of 50-60 feet. The longer the dry spell lasts, the sooner these wells will completely dry up. Last year, there were no rains at all, and the heat is increasing every year.” – [Muhammad Saleem Khoso, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

People in these areas mostly depend on groundwater resources which are depleting at a rapid rate. One of the participants describes the struggles of people when collecting water from one of the tube wells in Nagarparkar:

“People come here from long distances to get water. Those who come in the evening will get water in the morning. They will have to sit through the night. The water level in this well is very low. To fill one bucket of water, we need to take out almost 50 buckets. It is very tiring and time-consuming work. If our day is spent in collecting water, we lose an entire day’s wages and don’t get to eat that day.” – [Anwar Ali, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

To meet the water demands of the people in arid areas, a new informal sector activity has sprung up. Suppliers sell water—sometimes of questionable quality—from tankers to water-insecure people at a high price,

“We, city folk, get water tankers from a nearby village where there is still groundwater, even though it is quickly depleting as well. We get a tanker for 3000 PKR (~18 USD) which lasts us for 10-15 days.” – [Muhammad Saleem Khoso, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

People from communities in the desert of Thar employ seasonal migration as a drought adaptation strategy. They temporarily move to big cities in search of work during drought periods. They only return to their homes during the monsoon season to cultivate crops, if the monsoons take place at all.

“People migrate because of the drought. It is mostly the Kohli and Bheel communities who migrate with their entire families. However, in other Muslim communities only the men go away to Karachi or other places to work in factories, leaving the women and children behind. The migration is seasonal. The men come back in April or May to prepare the fields for when it rains.” – [Sagar, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

The lack of adequate water infrastructure is a big constraint that adds to the water insecurity of people. There is a lot of potential for rainwater harvesting and building of small dams in drought-prone areas, but government interest and investment is sorely lacking. In addition, local people are rarely consulted when interventions take place which leads to the failing of well-meaning initiatives due to a lack of inclusive planning and community buy-in. An example was provided by one of the respondents:

“We have a few small dams built here and there, but these have been built without consultation with the local people and instead of storing water cause more damage. One such dam has been built in the wrong location and it has redirected the seasonal river water which now poses a flood risk to nearby houses.” – [Muhammad Saleem Khoso, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

Mueller et al. 2014 showed that it is heat stress (and not high rainfall or floods as was popularly believed) that is most strongly associated with long-term human migration in rural Pakistan. High temperatures have been shown to lower agricultural yields in Pakistan (Rasul et al. 2011 ) as well as to lower farm and non-farm income (Mueller et al. 2014 ). The study finds that the probability of a non-migrant, male moving out of the village is 11 times more likely when exposed to extreme high temperatures (Mueller et al. 2014 ).

In arid areas, the frequency and intensity of heat waves has increased which sometimes even results in loss of lives,

“The heat in Manchhar is already unbearable. It even went up to 55 degrees Celsius last summer (2018). As a result, many people in my village died from heatstroke.” – [Moula Buksh Mallah, Male, Lake Manchhar, Dadu, 20 April 2019]

In the 2015 heatwave, at least 700 deaths occurred in Karachi alone (Masood et al. 2015 ). As the heat waves have become more common, people have started employing precautionary measures (such as staying hydrated and avoiding venturing out during the day) to prevent the loss of lives.

People’s daily lives and lifestyles have also been impacted because of the heat stress, and people and businesses in Chitral, for example, have had to adapt to the increasing summer heat, as described by one respondent:

“In the past, the hottest day in the summer recorded a temperature of 35 degrees Celsius, but for the past 2–3 years, the temperature goes up to 42 degrees. Before, there were no fans in our homes and hotels, and we used blankets in June and July. But now as the intensity of the heat has increased, we have had to install fans in our homes and hotels.” – [Imtiaz Alam, Male, Booni, Chitral, 2 May 2019]

The heat waves also pose risks to food security. Due to the intense heat, the produce starts rotting sooner and the cropping season has advanced in some areas,

“The cropping cycle hasn’t necessarily decreased, but the planting season has advanced by 15–20 days. In the last 5–6 years, the heat has increased a lot and has ruined our planting timetables.”- [Muhammad Tauseef, Male, Depalpur, Okara, 28 April 2019]

Apart from localized and often isolated adaptation strategies being employed, people have no awareness or direction on how to cope with the increasing heat. The people in urban areas usually cope by installing air conditioners and staying indoors, but the farmers and laborers usually do not have that choice or luxury. With greater heat stress also comes a risk of greater water and food insecurity.

Sea-level rise

Pakistan is among the countries most vulnerable to the impacts of rising sea levels with more than 10% of its population living in coastal areas (Rabbani et al. 2008 ). The average rate of sea-level rise in Pakistan’s coastal regions has been calculated to be approximately 1.1 mm per year (Rabbani et al. 2008 ).

Sea-level rise along the coast of Karachi has resulted in coastal erosion in villages like Soomar,

“This mosque in Soomar village used to have huts next to it. My grandmother’s home was next to the mosque. Now forget the house, even the land is not there now. The sea is encroaching every year.”- [Ghulam Ali Abbas, Male, Soomar village, Karachi, 14 April 2019]

The government had built a sea wall in Soomar village in the 1990s, but since then, no further protective measure has been undertaken.

Sea intrusion as a result of sea-level rise is also an issue for the people of Keti Bundar, a village in the coastal belt of Sindh, where people have lost livelihoods and property as a result,

“In olden times the sea was very far from Keti Bundar; now it's close. Slowly, the sea is eating up our land. Our land has also become lower.” – [Muhammad Siddique Roonjho, Male, Keti Bundar, Thatta, 17 March 2019]

When the land was no longer productive for farming due to salinity, many people in the area turned to fishing. However, sea intrusion and overfishing are now also threatening the livelihoods of fishermen.

Here is an example of how sea water intrusion is directly and adversely impacting people’s livelihoods in Keti Bundar, on the coast of Pakistan:

“After construction of dams [upstream], the quantity of sweet water in river Indus decreased. The sea came in and turned the land and water salty. In the past, people would grow so much rice here that its scent would be all around. But now, the rice is finished, the fish is finished. The quality of fish such as Dangree and Sonee has also deteriorated, and many fish species have gone extinct.” – [Hakeema, Female, Keti Bundar, Thatta, 17 March 2019]

As a result, many people have chosen to permanently migrate from the area as an adaptation strategy,

“Don't ask me about the past, it makes me cry. This place used to be very populated. When the sweet water finished, so did the fertile land. Now all we see is people leaving Keti Bundar.”- [Muhammad Siddique Roonjho, Male, Keti Bundar, Thatta, 17 March 2019]

Some NGOs are planting mangroves along the coast as an adaptation strategy to protect the communities against cyclones and storms, and to revive the diminishing fish and marine resources. The communities welcome the initiative and work with them to protect the mangroves from deforestation.

One of the main constraints in adaptation to sea-level rise is that many people in the coastal areas of Pakistan do not have access to alternative sources of livelihood. Most coastal villages depend solely on fishing which faces multiple threats such as sea intrusion, overfishing, and direct disposal of untreated wastewater. In addition, there is a lack of government support and investment to rehabilitate the people affected by sea-level rise and salinity intrusion.

Other stressors

In developing countries like Pakistan, climate change is often not the only stressor. Other stress factors like inadequate water and energy infrastructure, water pollution, and overfishing make adaptation to climate impacts more complex and harder to achieve. Therefore, to make climate adaptation or resilience-building strategies relevant and effective in these areas, it is important to consider and address these other stressors as well.

Deforestation was repeatedly mentioned in all the study sites as the most important factor exacerbating climate change impacts. Deforestation in Pakistan has increased because of population growth and increasing energy needs over the past decades. For example, in Chitral, rural communities do not have access to natural gas, while electricity supplies are highly unreliable and intermittent. Therefore, most people resort to burning firewood to keep their homes warm in sub-zero temperatures in the winters. Another example of deforestation comes from Thar where people cut down trees to use as cooking fuel and fodder for their livestock. Even though motivations may vary, poverty and lack of access to resources seem to be the underlying factor for the loss of tree cover.

Recommendations

For any policy or practical solution to contribute to successful climate change mitigation and adaptation, it should include local stakeholders. It is crucial to involve people at the early stages of adaptation planning as a lack of community needs assessment, or exclusion of communities in the decision-making processes usually leads to failed interventions (Dietz et al. 2013 ; Keeley and Scoones 2014 ; Pouw et al. 2017 ). People-centered research, such as this study, can provide policy-makers with valuable insights into social and environmental vulnerabilities (Keeley and Scoones 2014 ; Gardner and Lewis 1996 ) as well as the adaptation needs of people in different areas from a developing country perspective.

All of the recommendations presented here were proposed by the study participants themselves. In each of the provinces we visited, people recommended planting of trees and raising awareness to reduce deforestation. Reforestation efforts on deforested and overgrazed mountain slopes and in the desert of Thar were recommended and it was emphasized that preference be given to planting native species. It was also stressed that local communities should be involved in conservation efforts to prevent further deforestation. In addition, alternative sources of energy and gas should be provided to remote communities that are not yet connected to the grid. They also said that it is important to make good use of the huge renewable energy potential, such as micro-hydro and solar power, that is available in the country.

To deal with extreme drought in the desert of Thar, a respondent suggested to build dams to collect rainwater:

“So many rivers flow out of Jabal hill when it rains here during the monsoon season, but so much of our water is wasted. Dams should be built to collect this water. If we do that, our entire area will become lush and green and there will be no water shortage either.” – [Muhammad Saleem Khoso, Male, Nagarpakar, Thar, 6 April 2019]

It was acutely pointed out that there is a lack of good and transparent governance and that climate change education needs to be strengthened at all levels in the country. The schools and faith-based organizations can play a pivotal role in increasing levels of awareness and adaptation. It was also recommended to make climate change awareness a part of the curriculum in all schools.

To avoid the worst impacts of floods, respondents further recommended the construction of protection walls near the rivers to protect property and lives:

“If protection walls were built in flood-risk areas such as in my village in Bumburet, then the destruction could have been avoided.” – [Musharraf Khan, Male, Kalash, Chitral, 1 May 2019]

Moreover, better, and effective early warning systems were suggested to be put in place in all areas at risk of climate-related disasters.

Providing crop insurance and additional sources of income to the farmers could improve their resilience and food security,

“If you can find a way to supplement the income of the farmers, they can reinvest in their farm and will be able to adapt better to climate change or the pressures they are facing from competitive export markets.” – [Hasan Anwar, Male, Depalpur, Okara, 28 April 2019]

In sum, these recommendations by the respondents offer local solutions to address climate change impacts, food and energy insecurity and lack of community awareness simultaneously. If such recommendations by people in affected areas are better incorporated in national and local adaptation policies, this can contribute significantly to a more context-specific and locally driven climate resilience.

Discussion and conclusion

In this section, we highlight some of the broader thematic patterns observed during the study and their implications for building better and more inclusive climate policies and solutions.

People across the study sites demonstrated a high level of awareness of changes in the local climate, even though in some locations, particularly in Sindh and Punjab, people were not so familiar with the term 'climate change' even when translated into Urdu. In contrast, most people in Gilgit, Hunza and Chitral were familiar with the term and could also point to its causes such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. This gap in awareness can be attributed to higher levels of education and relatively better disaster awareness and management efforts by non-governmental organizations in the mountainous areas of the country.

The academic literature generally distinguishes two types of responses to climate change: mitigation and adaptation. However, Wapner ( 2014 ) states that a third dimension—climate suffering—is becoming increasingly familiar. The concept of climate suffering links closely to the issue of ‘loss and damage from climate change’, which is increasingly important in the climate negotiations and is now considered the third pillar—alongside mitigation and adaptation—of climate policy (Broberg and Martinez Romera 2020 ; Calliari et al. 2020 ).

Climate suffering is widespread in developing countries like Pakistan where awareness, resources and adaptive capacity are limited. While physical suffering is more visible, emotional trauma can stay under the radar for a long time. However, it can have long-lasting effects on the individual and society, as was related by several respondents. Speaking to those at the frontlines of climate change revealed much about climate suffering and trauma. Climate trauma may be induced by being directly impacted by disasters such as floods or by being displaced due to water shortages or unproductive soils. It can create feelings of chronic fear, deep sadness and yearning for the past and loss of a sense of safety.

Migration was observed as a common adaptation strategy that people used to deal with a loss of livelihood options due to climate change. Short-term migration can help cope with temporary livelihood insecurities, due to climatic stress and other disturbances (Black et al. 2011 , 2013 ; Cattaneo et al. 2019 ; van der Geest and Warner 2015 ). Such seasonal or temporary migration was common in the desert of Thar. However, when people are unable to adapt locally, they are forced to permanently migrate to other areas for better livelihood opportunities. Permanent migration as well as displacement due to weather-related disasters was observed in many areas of Keti Bundar, Chitral and Gilgit. It is important, however, to acknowledge that in some cases, being able to migrate is a privilege. Many people in low-income countries lack the resources, capabilities, support and networks needed to migrate successfully. As climate change puts more pressure on natural resources and exacerbates weather extremes, more and more people will be forced to live in places with severe habitability issues. Only some of them will have the means to move to greener pastures (Adams 2016 ; Navrotski and de Waard 2018 ; Ayeb-Karlsson 2020 ; Xu et al. 2020 ).

Employing a people-centered approach helps provide a much-needed perspective that sheds light on common—but often neglected or poorly prioritized—challenges. Examples of such challenges include the lack of climate awareness and community consultation for climate action, the role of other stressors like poverty and deforestation that exacerbate climate impacts, the current low level of adaptive capacity in communities and national institutions, psycho-social effects of climate disasters, and the non-economic losses and damages associated with climate change and displacement. Such deep, inter-sectoral and context-specific insights were only possible using a narratives-based approach centered on people’s lived experiences.

The results from this study have relevance also for other countries and regions as people living in similar climates and development stages may face similar stressors and constraints. However, it is also important to bear in mind the unique context and circumstances of each place and community as it has its own environmental, social, cultural, political, and economic dynamics. Furthermore, the capacity for climate resilience varies between and within regions and nations due to different development contexts and systemic vulnerabilities (IPCC 2018 ). Studies like this one if replicated in a wide range of contexts can help prepare and implement more effective and integrated climate change adaptation programs. The experiences and voices of ordinary people, especially in developing countries, who are suffering first hand because of the already manifesting consequences of climate change should be reflected in inclusive and participatory climate policy and interventions aimed at building resilience.

Taking into account people’s perceptions and experiences, understanding the limitations of local coping and adaptive capacity, and incorporating local recommendations about solutions can help policy-makers address present needs, anticipate future needs, and develop a participatory and holistic climate resilience framework that can be implemented at the local level where it is most needed.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the National Geographic Society’s Early Career Grant. The authors wish to thank the project team (Haya Fatima Iqbal, Saresh Khemani, Shajia Mithani, Omar Chowdry, Bushra Jabeen, and Shanzé Farooq) for their valuable contributions to the project. We also acknowledge Dr. Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson who provided comments on an early draft and Aileen Orate who designed the map with study sites (Fig. 1 ).

Source: Authors, with graphic design support by Aileen Orate (UNU-EHS)

Map of study sites in Pakistan.

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Ajani, A., van der Geest, K. Climate change in rural Pakistan: evidence and experiences from a people-centered perspective. Sustain Sci 16 , 1999–2011 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-021-01036-4

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Perspectives

Climate change: causes, outcomes in Pakistan and a way forward

September 24, 2019

Climate change can generally be defined as a change in global or regional climate patterns. In particular, it is the change apparent from the mid-to-late 20th century onwards, and attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels. The Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in its Article 1, defines climate change as: “A change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods.”

Human activities are the major cause of climate change. The foremost cause is global warming. Burning fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, has increased the concentration of carbon dioxide. Due to expansion of the greenhouse effect, global warming has risen. As per this phenomenon, gases such as water vapors, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and chlorofluorocarbons in the our atmosphere prevents the heat to leave the earth’s atmosphere; resultantly, the ozone layer depletes and the temperature rises.

In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that there is a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet. Industrial activities that our modern civilisation depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there is a better than 95 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in earth’s temperatures over the past 50 years. About half of the CO2 emissions, between 1750 and 2010, have occurred in the last 40 years.

Deforestation and increase in the use of chemicals in domestic and agriculture life is another reason of climate change. Deforestation is the second leading cause of global warming and produces about 24 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Scientists say that deforestation in tropical rainforests adds more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than the sum total of all the cars and trucks on the world’s roads.

The surge in the uses of chemicals in domestic as well as in agriculture, in the shape of fertilisers, also plays its role in climate change. The high rate of application of nitrogen-rich fertilisers has effects on the heat storage of cropland (nitrogen oxides have 300 times more heat-trapping capacity per unit of volume than carbon dioxide) and the run-off of excess fertilizers creates ‘dead zones’ in our oceans. In addition to these effects, high nitrate levels in groundwater due to over fertilization are cause for concern for human health.

These causes resulted in climate change and have a perilous aftermath. In this regard, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was created by the United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in 1988. It now engages with 195 member countries, which provides policymakers with regular scientific assessments on climate change, its implications and potential future risks, as well as to put forward adaptation and mitigation options.

The foremost hazardous evidence is the rise of carbon dioxide in out atmosphere. As per NASA’s scientific evidence, for a millennium, the level of carbon dioxide (parts per million) was below 300, which started to rise since 1950, and is now above 400. Secondly, as per NASA’s evidence, the planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit (0.9 degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere. Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with the five warmest years on record taking place since 2010. This is also established by the United Nations’ report, prepared by the World Meteorological Organisation, on September 22, 2019. It states that the period “is currently estimated to be 1.1 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial era of 1850-1900, and 0.2 degrees Celsius warmer than 2011-2015”.

Thirdly, the oceans are getting warmer, and ice sheets are shrinking. As per NASA, the oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700 meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of more than 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969. The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have decreased and have lost an average of 286 billion tons of ice per year between 1993 and 2016, while Antarctica lost about 127 billion tons of ice per year during the same time period. The rate of Antarctica ice mass loss has tripled in the last decade.

Fourthly, the glaciers are melting and sea level is rising. Around the globe, the glaciers are retreating including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, Alaska and Africa. The global sea level rose about eight inches in the last century. The rate in the last two decades, however, is nearly double that of the last century and is accelerating slightly every year.

There are other drastic evidences of climate change. Arctic sea ice is declining rapidly. Disturbed rainfalls and extreme weather events have increased. Also, the ocean acidification, which has increased by about 30 percent since the Industrial Revolution, is another evidence of climate change. It also has a negative impact on crop yield productions. The direct impact on the lives of humans is on the vulnerable and the marginalised segment of society.

As per NASA, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate-warming trends over the past century are very likely due to human activities

As per IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, numerous risks are involved that raise concern. These include risk of death, injuries, health or disturbed livelihoods due to storms, flooding and sea-level rise. The risk in water supply, supply of electricity and emergency situations are also there. The foremost risk is food insecurity due to droughts, flooding, and precipitation variability. There is the risk to lose marine and coastal ecosystems and biodiversity as well.

Although Pakistan is not much contributing in global warming and climate change, yet it is the seventh most affected country. The Global Change Impact Studies Centre of Pakistan shows that the mean annual temperature has increased in the recent past with greater increase in Sindh and Balochistan. During the last century, the average temperature over Pakistan has increased by 0.6°C, which is in conformity with the increase of the average global temperature. Future climate change projections, based on all four IPCC-AR5 RCPs scenarios, show that the average rise in temperature over Pakistan, by the end of the century, will be about 1°C higher compared to the global average. This increase, particularly in temperature, is associated with a number of adverse impacts, including the increasing frequency of extreme events (floods, droughts, heat waves, and cyclonic activity), steady regression of most glaciers (except a small minority in the Karakorum Range) that supply the bulk of the country’s water supply and changes in the rainfall patterns.

Pakistan’s water cycle is the primary affected area of climate change. Agriculture is one of the major sectors likely to be adversely affected by climate change. Climate change can disrupt food availability, reduce access to food, and affect food quality. Projected increases in temperatures, changes in precipitation patterns, changes in extreme weather events, and reductions in water availability may all result in reduced agricultural productivity. Seasonal smog is also due to climate change and pollution.

Pakistan has also suffered economically due to climate change. According to experts, Pakistan has faced around 150 freak weather incidents as a result of climate change in the past 20 years: flash floods, smog in winter, forest fires in summer, melting glaciers, freaky heatwaves, landslides, displaced population. During the floods in 2010-11, almost 10 percent of Pakistan’s population was displaced in two provinces, one in the north and another in the south. Last year, the cost of extreme weather as a consequence of climate change was listed at $384 million; in the past 20 years, there has been a cost of almost two billion dollars to the national economy because of the ravages of climate change.

The writing is on the wall. The world is responding to the danger now. Greta Thunberg, a teenage Swedish environment activist, shookup the top leaders with a Global Climate Strike call on September 20, 2019, through which the protest was recorded in around 150 countries, in more than 4,500 places.

The UN has shown its commitment to fight in this noble cause. There are various agreements and protocols for climate change. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is the main international agreement on climate action. It was one of the three conventions adopted at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. To date, it has been ratified by 195 countries. It started as a way for countries to work together to limit global temperature increases and climate change, and to cope with their impacts.

In the mid-1990s, the UNFCCC signatories realised that stronger provisions were needed to reduce emissions. In this regard, they agreed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which introduced legally binding emission reduction targets for developed countries. Next comes the Paris Agreement; the Paris climate conference took place from November 30 to December 11, 2015. On December 12, the parties reached a new global agreement on climate change. The agreement presents a balanced outcome with an action plan to limit global warming ‘well below’ two degree Celsius. There is also the Montreal Protocol 1987, which is a global agreement to protect the stratospheric ozone layer by phasing out the production and consumption of ozone-depleting substances. There is also the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) 1994 to combat desertification and mitigate the effects of drought in countries experiencing serious drought/ desertification.

What requires is that we must change course by 2020, as the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterreshas said; we risk missing the point where we can avoid the “disastrous consequences for people and all the natural systems that sustain us.”

In this regard, there are the following suggestions to tackle global warming. Dramatically reducing our use of fossil fuels, especially carbon-intensive coal, is essential to tackle climate change. There are many ways to begin this process. Key action steps include: not building any new coal-burning power plants, initiating a phased shutdown of coal plants starting with the oldest and dirtiest, and capturing and storing carbon emissions from power plants. While it may sound like science fiction, the technology exists to store carbon emissions underground.

Taken together with the tropical deforestation, emissions from agriculture represent nearly 30 percent of the world’s heat-trapping emissions. We can fight global warming by reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and by making our food production practices more sustainable.

Using alternative sources of energy is more efficient and meets the problem of global warming. Energy producing from solar, wind, tidal, and biomass are more clean and renewable. There are least effects if we produce electricity from the alternative sources of energy. Nuclear power results in a few global warming emissions; an increased share of nuclear power in the energy mix could help reduce global warming.

A successful global compact on climate change must include financial assistance from richer countries to poorer countries to help make the transition to low-carbon development pathways and to help adapt to the impacts of climate change. The energy used to power, heat, and cool our homes, businesses, and industries are the single largest contributor to global warming. Energy efficiency technologies are the dire need of the hour.

Transportation sector’s emissions have increased at a faster rate than any other energy-usingsector over the past decade. For this, efficient fuel consumption modes of transport, and switching to low-carbon fuels are the requirement of time.

In a nutshell, we must develop a two-pronged approach: firstly, we must reduce emissions and stabilise the levels of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere; secondly, we must adapt climate-friendly lifestyles and pursue the principles of sustainable economic growth.

Although Pakistan is facing environmental challenges, which include climate change impacts, loss of biological diversity, deforestation and degradation of air and water quality, Pakistan is trying to respond well. Because of the deteriorating economy, the country could not do much. But still, the present government has launched the Ten Billion Trees Tsunami Programme to lead the country towards aiming at revival of forestry and control air, weather, wildlife, forestation, watershed management and soil conservation to combat the negative impacts of climate change. Pakistan is amongst the pioneers who have established a climate ministry. The country has also launched the Climate Change Policy 2012. The National Climate Change Policy comprehensively addresses all possible challenges of climate change and provides a foundational framework to tackle the problem. But Pakistan alone cannot do it. It is a global issue. The whole of the world’s future is at stake.

It is time that the United Nations, along with all 195 countries, do not let the grass grow under its feet and act now to save the mother earth.

The writer is an advocate of the High Court and teaches law

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Climate change likely helped cause deadly Pakistan floods, scientists find

Rebecca Hersher

People wait in line for food in Sindh province, Pakistan, on Sept. 19, 2022. The province was one of the hardest hit by recent deadly floods. A new analysis confirms that climate change likely helped cause the disaster. Pervez Masih/AP hide caption

People wait in line for food in Sindh province, Pakistan, on Sept. 19, 2022. The province was one of the hardest hit by recent deadly floods. A new analysis confirms that climate change likely helped cause the disaster.

It is likely that climate change helped drive deadly floods in Pakistan, according to a new scientific analysis. The floods killed nearly 1500 people and displaced more than 30 million, after record-breaking rain in August.

The analysis confirms what Pakistan's government has been saying for weeks: that the disaster was clearly driven by global warming . Pakistan experienced its wettest August since the country began keeping detailed national weather records in 1961. The provinces that were hardest hit by floods received up to eight times more rain than usual, according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department .

Climate change made such heavy rainfall more likely, according to the analysis by a group of international climate scientists in Pakistan, Europe and the United States. While Pakistan has sometimes experienced heavy monsoon rains, about 75 percent more water is now falling during weeks when monsoon rains are heaviest, the scientists estimate.

The analysis is a so-called attribution study, a type of research that is conducted very quickly compared to other climate studies, and is meant to offer policymakers and disaster survivors a rough estimate of how global warming affected a specific weather event. More in-depth research is underway to understand the many ways that climate change affects monsoon rainfall.

For example, while it's clear that intense rain will keep increasing as the Earth heats up, climate models also suggest that overall monsoon rains will be less reliable . That would cause cycles of both drought and flooding in Pakistan and neighboring countries in the future.

Such climate whiplash has already damaged crops and killed people across southeast Asia in recent years, and led to a water crisis in Chennai, India in 2019.

The new analysis also makes clear that human caused climate change was not the only driver of Pakistan's deadly floods. Scientists point out that millions of people live in flood-prone areas with outdated drainage in provinces where the flooding was most severe. Upgrading drainage, moving homes and reinforcing bridges and roads would all help prevent such catastrophic damage in the future.

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Climate crisis in pakistan: voices from the ground.

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Introduction

Climate Crisis

In August 2022, torrential monsoon rains triggered the most devastating floods in Pakistan’s history. Over 33 million people were affected by the floodwaters — a staggering number close to the population of Canada. Our teams on the ground were quick to respond, providing close to one million Pakistanis with emergency food, water, shelter, and life-saving assistance.

We heard from many individuals who were impacted, including one man in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who told us, “I’ve been living in this area since birth and experienced the 2010 flood and the ones before… but this one was so much more destructive because of how long the water stayed, and how high it was — 8 to 15 feet tall. Entire neighborhoods are under water.”

The 2022 floods, however, did not occur in a vacuum and were not an isolated event. As experts have noted, the 2022 floods were made significantly worse by human-caused climate change. As this report reveals, through data collected prior to the flood emergency, the region has been deeply affected by climate change.

Pakistan produces less than 1% of the world’s carbon footprint yet is suffering the biggest consequences of climate change. According to the Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan is currently the fifth most climate-vulnerable country in the world, having lost nearly ten thousand lives and suffering economic losses worth 3.8 billion USD due to climate change throughout the years 1999 to 2018.

Changing seasonal weather patterns, rising temperatures, variability of monsoons and melting of glaciers in the north — compounded with recurrent extreme weather events and natural disasters — are just some of the effects of climate change that Pakistan has been forced to contend with in recent years.

Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), is likewise grappling with the same effects of climate change through changes in seasonal patterns and periodic natural disasters that have resulted in catastrophic landslides, flash flooding and water scarcity — among other problems.

A Holistic and Effective Approach to Tackling Climate Change

Islamic Relief has been working on the ground in Pakistan for over 30 years, transforming the lives of millions of people. In response to the climate crisis, Islamic Relief Pakistan has consistently been at the forefront of ensuring climate-adaptive approaches are mainstreamed into programming. Islamic Relief recognizes that women must be at the center of the fight against climate change as powerful agents of change in their communities.

With the aim to arrive at a more detailed and practical understanding of the current and long-term situation facing Pakistanis living through the climate crisis, Islamic Relief Canada researchers joined Islamic Relief Pakistan on the ground, engaging in a communitybased narrative inquiry study. Our researchers placed a specific emphasis on listening to women, who shared their insights into the unique toll that climate change is taking on their day-to-day lives.

This report sheds light on the many ways that climate change is affecting communities in Pakistan. We advocate for an intersectional approach to programs that tackle climate change — thus, prioritizing those most impacted by creating livelihood opportunities that sustain the adoption of climate-adaptive solutions.

Climate change is the defining issue of our time. We are at a critical juncture where governments must act immediately to avoid irreversible catastrophe. It is crucial that the global community makes every effort to meet respective domestic targets and pool resources to help communities that are already experiencing the crippling consequences of climate change without delay.

Related Content

Pakistan 2022 floods response plan interim report: sep – nov 2022 (issued 09 dec 2022), pakistan revised 2022 floods response plan summary : 01 sep 2022 - 31 may 2023 issued 04 oct 2022, revised pakistan 2022 floods response plan: 01 sep 2022 - 31 may 2023 (04 oct 2022), pakistan – flood response community needs identification (cni) | round 4 - sindh (august 2023).

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Climate Change Added a Month’s Worth of Extra-Hot Days in Past Year

Since last May, the average person experienced 26 more days of abnormal warmth than they would have without global warming, a new analysis found.

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By Raymond Zhong

Over the past year of record-shattering warmth, the average person on Earth experienced 26 more days of abnormally high temperatures than they otherwise would have, were it not for human-induced climate change, scientists said Tuesday.

The past 12 months have been the planet’s hottest ever measured, and the burning of fossil fuels, which has added huge amounts of heat-trapping gases to the atmosphere, is a major reason. Nearly 80 percent of the world’s population experienced at least 31 days of atypical warmth since last May as a result of human-caused warming, the researchers’ analysis found.

Hypothetically, had we not heated the globe to its current state , the number of unusually warm days would have been far fewer, the scientists estimated, using mathematical modeling of the global climate.

The precise difference varies place to place. In some countries, it is just two or three weeks, the researchers found. In others, including Colombia, Indonesia and Rwanda, the difference is upward of 120 days.

“That’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on people,” said one of the researchers who conducted the new analysis, Andrew Pershing, the vice president for science at Climate Central, a nonprofit research and news organization based in Princeton, N.J., adding, “It’s a lot of toll that we’ve imposed on nature.” In parts of South America and Africa, he said, it amounts to “120 days that just wouldn’t be there without climate change.”

Currently, the world’s climate is shifting toward the La Niña phase of the cyclical pattern known as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. This typically portends cooler temperatures on average. Even so, the recent heat could have reverberating effects on weather and storms in some places for months to come. Forecasters expect this year’s Atlantic hurricane season to be extraordinarily active, in part because the ocean waters where storms form have been off-the-charts warm.

The analysis issued Tuesday was a collaboration between several groups: Climate Central, the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre and World Weather Attribution, a scientific initiative that examines extreme weather episodes. The report’s authors considered a given day’s temperature to be abnormally high in a particular location if it exceeded 90 percent of the daily temperatures recorded there between 1991 and 2020.

The average American experienced 39 days of such temperatures as a result of climate change since last May, the report found. That’s 19 more days than in a hypothetical world without human-caused warming. In some states, including Arizona and New Mexico in the Southwest and Washington and Oregon in the Northwest, the difference is 30 days or more, a full extra month.

The scientists also tallied up how many extreme heat waves the planet had experienced since last May. They defined these as episodes of unseasonable warmth across a large area, lasting three or more days, with significant loss of life or disruption to infrastructure and industry.

In total, the researchers identified 76 such episodes over the past year, affecting 90 countries, on every continent except Antarctica. There was the punishing hot spell in India last spring. There was the extreme heat that worsened wildfires and strained power grids in North America, Europe and East Asia last summer. And, already this year, there has been excessive warmth from Africa to the Middle East to Southeast Asia .

Raymond Zhong reports on climate and environmental issues for The Times. More about Raymond Zhong

Our Coverage of Climate and the Environment

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A group of health experts, economists and U.S. government lawyers are working to address a growing crisis: people dying on the job from extreme heat. They face big hurdles .

After halting a test of controversial technology to fight global warming , the city of Alameda, Calif., said it had found no “measurable health risk” from the giant salty-mist-spraying fans.

Adopting Orphaned Oil Wells:  Students, nonprofit groups and others are fund-raising to cap highly polluting oil and gas wells  abandoned by industry.

Struggling N.Y.C. Neighborhoods:  New data projects are linking social issues with global warming. Here’s what that means for five communities in New York .

Biden Environmental Rules:  The Biden administration has rushed to finalize 10 major environmental regulations  to meet its self-imposed spring deadline.

F.A.Q.:  Have questions about climate change? We’ve got answers .

Volunteers spray water on people's faces as temperatures reached 118°F in Hyderabad, Pakistan on May 24, 2024.

Climate Emergency Again Grips Pakistan as Temps Soar to Nearly 126°F

"the customers are not coming to the restaurant because of extreme heat," said one tea shop owner in the town of mohenjo daro. "i sit idle at the restaurant with these tables and chairs and without any customers.".

Record-breaking heat in Pakistan's southern province of Sindh this week was the South Asian country's latest local climate emergency, with temperatures soaring to 125.6°F on Monday.

The extreme heat this month comes amid warnings from the World Weather Attribution that last month's heatwaves in Asian countries including Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam were "driven by emissions from oil, gas, and coal."

The think tank also said in 2022 that Pakistan's devastating floods that year were made more likely by the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis.

Australia-based journalist Abdul Waheed Rabbani said Pakistan's "profound climate challenges" should push the government to declare a national emergency to address extreme heatwaves and other climate impacts.

The temperatures in Sindh on Monday were the highest of the summer season so far and approached the country's record high.

Cities deployed volunteer teams to spray residents with cold water as they went about their daily tasks.

In the historic town of Mohenjo Daro, which welcomes tourists to its archeological sites and offers a downtown area where visitors can shop and dine, the 125°F heat harmed the local economy this week.

"The customers are not coming to the restaurant because of extreme heat," Wajid Ali, who owns a tea shop, told Reuters . "I sit idle at the restaurant with these tables and chairs and without any customers... Also there is no power. The heat has made us very uneasy."

The city of Turbat in the southwestern province of Balochistan recorded Pakistan's highest-ever temperature of 129.2°F in 2017, and the following year, dozens of people in Pakistan suffered from heatstroke as meteorologists reported the planet's hottest April on record in the city of Nawabshah, where temperatures rose to 122.3°F.

"Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country to the impact of climate change," said Rubina Khursheed Alam, the government climate coordinator, at a news conference last Friday. "We have witnessed above normal rains, floods."

Pakistan's capital, Karachi, is expected to be hit with extreme heat in the coming days.

In addition to rapidly drawing down fossil fuel emissions, especially in the world's biggest pollution-causing countries including the U.S., Pakistan-based water management expert Amjad Jamal urged officials to confront "Pakistan's climate roller coaster" through adaptation.

"To mitigate the impact of these extremes," said Jamal, "government and communities must invest in water harvesting and storage, implement climate-resilient agriculture, enhance disaster preparedness and response, promote water conservation and efficiency, [and] support climate-smart infrastructure development."

Join Us: News for people demanding a better world

• Warnings of 'Catastrophic Consequences' as Locust Swarms Hit India and Pakistan in Midst of Coronavirus Crisis ›
• On Sweltering Planet, Hottest April Temperature Ever Recorded on Earth Hits Pakistan ›
• IPCC Scientist Warns India-Pakistan Record Temps 'Testing Limits of Human Survivability' ›
• Extreme heatwave disrupts education for half of Pakistan's ... ›
• Pakistan: A burning emergency: Extreme heat and the right to health ... ›
• Hundreds of people suffer heatstroke in Pakistan, and dangerous ... ›

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June 20, 2024

Current Issue

Let There Be Light

June 6, 2024 issue

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Works by Correggio, Antoniazzo Romano, Perugino, and Raphael in one of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s newly refurbished European Paintings galleries

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Look Again: European Paintings, 1300–1800

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s European Paintings galleries, which reopened last November after a thoughtful, beautiful refurbishment and reinstallation, now display more than seven hundred works, including a discrete selection of sculpture and the decorative arts (and even a small sampling of nineteenth-, twentieth-, and twenty-first-century paintings). After efforts to raise $600 million to fund David Chipperfield’s design for the wing housing modern and contemporary art stalled in 2016, those plans were shelved, and the museum shifted its attention to the long-deferred maintenance of the second-floor galleries’ skylights. This complex undertaking was launched in 2018 after approval from New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission. Housed in attics above the glass-paneled ceilings, the corrugated wire-and-glass skylights consisted of a louver system dating from 1939 that had last been remodeled in 1952. In replacing some 1,400 skylights covering 30,000 square feet at a cost of $150 million, the primary objective was to improve the way that natural light, in combination with artificial lighting, enters the suite of forty-five galleries at the top of the grand stairway that has occupied pride of place at the Met since the building was completed in 1880.

The five-and-a-half-year project, initiated under the direction of Keith Christiansen, former John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings—in whose honor several outstanding recent acquisitions, such as Nicolas Poussin’s The Agony in the Garden (1626–1627) and Charles Le Brun’s The Jabach Family (circa 1660), have been made—and brought to completion by his successor, Stephan Wolohojian, also provided the opportunity to construct new heating and air-conditioning systems, with impressive improvements in sustainability and energy consumption. While nearly all the galleries had to be de-installed and the paintings relocated or placed in storage, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s monumental decorations for the grand reception room of the Palazzo Dolfin in Venice, three of which have greeted visitors to these galleries since the late 1970s, remained in place throughout the work. “It’s open-heart surgery,” quipped the Met’s director and CEO , Max Hollein, “and the patient is awake.”

This was the first of four major capital projects. Of the three still underway, by far the most ambitious is the 135,000-square-foot Tang Wing for modern and contemporary art, designed by the Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. Launched in November 2021 by a gift of $125 million from the philanthropists Oscar L. Tang and Agnes Hsu-Tang—the largest capital donation in the museum’s history—it is estimated to cost $500 million and is slated for completion in 2029. (At the beginning of May, the Met announced that it had secured $550 million in private donations for the new wing.)

Beyond the lighting, the European Paintings galleries project is less a physical reconfiguration of the spaces—while some doorways have been widened, the layout, established in 2013, remains essentially the same—than a thorough reconsideration of the display of the Met’s collection of paintings from Giotto to Jacques Louis David. Chronology dominates the new sequence, and, particularly in the Renaissance galleries, artists from Northern Europe are brought into conversation with their Italian counterparts. You can choose to follow the numbering that is rather tentatively inscribed on the doorjambs at each gallery, but there is flexibility to the sequence. The curators have devoted entire rooms to El Greco, Rembrandt, and Goya; the museum’s five Vermeers are beautifully displayed on one wall in gallery 614; its paintings by Velázquez, Poussin, and David have never been so well installed. The same can be said of the superb sixteenth-century Venetian paintings in gallery 608; the Holbeins brought together with masterpieces of Italian portraiture by Andrea del Sarto, Bronzino, Salviati, and Sofonisba Anguissola (the spectacular full-length Portrait of a Noblewoman on loan from the Kletsch Collection) in gallery 612; and the near-perfect symmetrical hang of large-scale paintings and portraits by Rubens and Van Dyck in gallery 618.

The chronological progression is punctuated by occasional thematic displays. There are rooms devoted to still lifes, the artist in his or her studio, oil sketches, and the different supports on which painters have worked (primarily wood and copper). There are also occasional atemporal confrontations that function at their best, the critic Karen Wilkin has noted, “rather like seasoning, a squeeze of lemon, that sharpens our perceptions.” 1

When you enter the first long gallery devoted to fourteenth-century Florentine and Sienese religious painting by the right-hand set of doors, you might wonder if you have come to the right place. For you are immediately confronted by Max Beckmann’s postwar triptych The Beginning (1946–1949), flanking Jean Bellegambe’s The Cellier Altarpiece (1511–1512): two tripartite masterpieces in dialogue. On an adjacent wall Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Self-Portrait (1979) is placed next to a fourteenth-century Florentine Head of Christ attributed to Niccolò di Tommaso. In other galleries paintings by artists such as William Orpen, Henri Matisse, Chaïm Soutine, Salvador Dalí, Elaine de Kooning, and Kerry James Marshall create intentionally disruptive juxtapositions. These are neither disturbing nor jarring—they are exhilarating.

Hanging paintings by Cezanne and Picasso in the El Greco gallery can be justified historically—Picasso studied El Greco’s works from the time he was a teenager—but they serve an aesthetic rather than a didactic purpose by enhancing an already dazzling display. Before visiting the galleries, I was skeptical about the pairing of Duccio’s transcendental Madonna and Child (the Stoclet Madonna , circa 1290–1300), acquired in 2004 for a record—and much-reported—sum of over $45 million, with Ingres’s The Virgin Adoring the Host (1852), which entered the museum as a gift the following year. Placed at the center of the gallery that brings together for the most part fourteenth- and fifteenth- century paintings and objects used for private devotions (under the rubric “Beyond the Wall”), the Duccio presides in a far more dignified space than it previously occupied. Now as before you can see the singe marks made by candle flames on the lower edge of the panel. Ingres’s exquisite work acts as a deferential partner to Duccio’s monumentally tender depiction, while demonstrating the continuing function of such small-scale paintings to nourish personal piety over the centuries.

The Met’s curators and designers have shown impressive restraint in their selection, as well as thoughtfulness about the museum’s various audiences for older European art. With one notable exception, the galleries are hung spaciously and are not overcrowded with artworks. Most rooms have at least one painting, if not more, designated a Collection Highlight, with a longer label. There is a preference for forthright, saturated tones as backgrounds on the walls—nine hundred gallons of paint were required—and a palette of five colors has been used. For the walls of the early Italian galleries the designers have found an elegant “gull-wing gray.” Also effective are the vibrant blue of the introductory Tiepolo gallery, curiously called “gentleman’s gray”; the deep purple-brown (“galaxy”) used for the sixteenth-century Venetian and El Greco rooms; and the earthen red (“red rock”) for the Italian Baroque and Goya galleries. Less felicitous is the choice of a baby blue (“province blue”) for the ten eighteenth-century galleries with which the installation concludes. It has a somewhat deadening effect on these French and Italian paintings.

During the past decade and under the leadership of Michael Gallagher, the recently retired Sherman Fairchild Chairman of the Department of Paintings Conservation, conservators have cleaned and restored an impressive array of paintings in anticipation of the reinstallation. Masterpieces by Giotto, the anonymous fourteenth-century Bohemian Painter, Giovanni di Paolo, Fra Angelico, Filippino Lippi, Jacopo Bassano, Moretto da Brescia, Poussin, Charles Le Brun, and David—to name but a handful—have been examined and treated.

Most spectacularly, Rembrandt’s Aristotle with a Bust of Homer (1653) was meticulously restored by Dorothy Mahon, who removed the haze-like bloom that had clouded the surface of the canvas since its last cleaning in 1980. The rich black velvet of Aristotle’s tunic is revealed in unimagined depth and texture. The philosopher’s chain of office sparkles in the penumbral light, as does the profile medallion of Alexander the Great hanging from it, below the voluminous drapery of Aristotle’s lemony-gold satin mantle, rendered in dabs and dashes of impasto. Even the glinting gold band on the little finger of Aristotle’s left hand is now visible.

It should also be noted that with very few exceptions, the paintings are not displayed behind glass. This is normal procedure in permanent collection galleries, but courageous and commendable today when vandalism by climate activists has compelled many institutions to reconsider the vulnerability of unglazed works (and their frames). There are lines of tape on the floor demarcating the appropriate distance from the walls at which viewers should stand, and on all of my recent visits the guards were vigilant and courteous in enforcing this (and the visitors unfailingly compliant).

The labels and text panels in each gallery are for the most part succinct, accessible, and informative. In Tiepolo’s The Triumph of Marius (1729), which dominates the large entrance hall, the sympathetic depiction of the vanquished North African king Jugurtha—standing upright and alone in his red cloak, more prominent than the victorious Roman general in the chariot behind him—serves as a palimpsest of sorts. An effort has been made to avoid the triumphalism frequently implicit in surveys of European art. Europe, we are told, was as much a geographical construct as a coherent entity, and the legacy of Mediterranean antiquity influenced many cultures beyond the continent. Hence the inclusion of a superb fourth- or fifth-century bodhisattva from Gandhara (present-day Pakistan), as well as a radiant eighteenth-century Mexican lacquered wood bowl illustrating an episode from Virgil’s Aeneid . If you look closely at The Triumph of Marius , you see the portrait of the thirty-three-year-old artist halfway up the left-hand edge of the canvas: his is the only face to engage the viewer directly. But it stretches the evidence—and is also anachronistic—to claim, as the general introductory panel does, that “many painters similarly worked to define Europe, as well as its constituent parts, often by staging encounters between the self and the other.”

While likely beyond most visitors’ recollections, until 1980 the Met’s European galleries presented a far broader survey of paintings, from Giotto to Picasso, with Raphael’s Colonna Altarpiece (circa 1504; see illustration) at the top of the monumental stairway. Only in that year were the nineteenth-century paintings moved to the thirteen newly built André Meyer galleries, whose modernist design was heralded by the architectural historian Ada Louise Huxtable as “a near-perfect synthesis of the arts of scholarship, building and display.” 2 In anticipation of the gift of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection of Walter and Leonore Annenberg, in 1993 this wing was transformed into a Beaux-Arts suite of twenty-one galleries, and in 2007 by the addition of nine new rooms.

The bequest to the Met of the Annenberg collection in 2002, with the provision that the works be shown together in contiguous galleries and not be lent—mercifully without any stipulation that the installation replicate the midcentury modern interiors of the Annenbergs’ California residence at Sunnylands—reminds us that the growth and preeminence of the museum since its incorporation in April 1870 have depended largely on the acquisition of collections en bloc from trustees and donors, most of whom have sought to attach conditions on presentation and display. (Among the Met’s greatest benefactors, John Pierpont Morgan and Louisine Havemeyer were unusual in imposing no such restrictions to their gifts.) After a decade spent in temporary quarters—Allen Dodworth’s Dancing Academy at 681 Fifth Avenue and James Renwick’s Douglas Mansion at 128 West 14th Street (which Henry James remembered as “stately though scrappy”)—in March 1880 the Met finally took possession of the High Victorian Gothic structure in Central Park designed by Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould. By 1895 the growth and ambition of the museum led to its reorientation away from the park to Fifth Avenue, with a monumental Beaux-Arts façade, entrance hall, and grand stairway designed by Richard Morris Hunt, completed by his sons, and inaugurated in December 1902. These are largely unchanged and are familiar to all who visit the Met today.

Of the founding purchase in March 1871 of 174 old master European paintings, mainly of the Northern schools, eleven works remain on display in the new installation, including paintings by Salomon van Ruysdael, Poussin, Van Dyck, and Jean-Baptiste Oudry. An even greater number—some fourteen gifts and thirteen works acquired through his funding—come from the collection of the Met’s greatest early donor, the banker and railroad financier Henry Gurdon Marquand. This was a gift of “rare munificence,” as James noted, that included Vermeer’s Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (circa 1662), even if Marquand’s “Leonardo”— Girl with Cherries (circa 1491–1495)—has long been reattributed to Marco d’Oggiono, and his “Lucas van Leyden” of Joseph Interpreting the Dreams of Pharaoh (circa 1534–1547) to Jörg Breu the Younger. The earliest (and most momentous) endowment for acquisitions, a gift of $6 million from the estate of Jacob S. Rogers—the miserly and misanthropic president of Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works in Paterson, New Jersey—known as the Rogers Fund, has supported the acquisition of no fewer than eighty of the paintings currently on view.

As Calvin Tomkins made clear in his still-indispensable Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art , published in 1970 in celebration of the institution’s centenary, successive presidents and trustees have walked the delicate line of soliciting entire collections of European art while trying to discourage donors from determining the placement of their bequests or imposing restrictions upon them. As noted by the Met’s first president, John Taylor Johnston, a lawyer, railroad tycoon, and discriminating collector of American paintings, “We must curb the exuberance of our donors except in the article of money, of which they may give as much as they please.” His son-in-law Robert Weeks DeForest, who succeeded J.P. Morgan as president of the Met in 1913, lamented that the museum “cannot wisely prevent the proper arrangement of its growing collections as an integral whole by accepting gifts conditioned on perpetual segregation.”

Yet for much of the twentieth century the development of the Met’s collection of European art was dependent precisely on agreeing to such terms. Outstanding collections from the bequests of the department store magnate Benjamin Altman (1913); his successor at B. Altman and Company, Colonel Michael Friedsam (1931); the Met’s seventh president, the banker George Blumenthal (1941); and the banker Jules Semon Bache (1944) were accepted in accordance with the donors’ desire that the collections be kept together and shown in contiguous galleries.

The most extreme example was the acceptance in 1969 of the collection of Robert Lehman, the investment banker and first chairman of the museum’s board—a position created to secure the donation—which is housed in galleries that replicate the rooms in his homes at 7 West 54th Street and 625 Park Avenue and is installed, as Tomkins put it, “forever inviolate from other objects.” The glass-domed wing on the Met’s west façade overlooking Central Park, built to accommodate the Lehman collection, was inaugurated in May 1975. 3 The final manifestation of this insistence on replicating the collectors’ interiors is the seven first-floor galleries devoted to Jack and Belle Linsky’s collection, which opened in 1982. The Linsky fortune was made from the Swingline Corporation, manufacturer of staplers and office stationery. Forty years later the galleries remain mostly overlooked and little visited.

While some donor restrictions still apply—works from the Altman, Annenberg, and Wrightsman collections may not be lent to other institutions, and the Lehman wing continues as a separate entity—the reinstalled European galleries represent the Met’s most ambitious attempt to integrate masterpieces from all the donations and bequests, including a handful of impressive loans and promised gifts such as Antoine Le Nain’s A Peasant Family (circa 1640–1648), an exquisite small painting on copper, and Orazio Gentileschi’s Madonna and Child (circa 1607), the latter from the recently announced benefaction of the television producer Dick Wolf of Law and Order fame. While the absence of the fourteenth-century Sienese painter Simone Martini in the new hang is somewhat surprising—especially since three of his panels can be seen in the Lehman galleries—the presence of the Lehman collection’s magnificent El Greco Saint Jerome as Scholar (circa 1610) in gallery 619 adds immeasurably to the impact of that room. Similarly, I was struck by the grandeur of Luis Meléndez’s The Afternoon Meal (La Merienda) (circa 1772) from the Linsky collection, the Met’s only work by this Spanish still-life painter, which more than holds its own in the Goya gallery. It is also remarkable that an impressive gallery devoted to the arts of the Spanish Americas (626)—primarily eighteenth-century religious paintings and objects from Mexico City—has been assembled entirely through gifts and acquisitions made over the past decade.

The Met’s vice-president of capital projects, Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli, has described the skylight renovation as part of a progressive mission that renews faith with the founding principles of the institution:

What, then, are our galleries if not prisms that shift our gaze and reverence toward the act of making? Our collections are a testament to labor and provide the inspiration needed to see the people who construct our galleries and improve our infrastructure as artisans, whose work will one day be the subject of study by the art historians of the future…. The galleries themselves provide an opportunity to mine contemporary acts of making to deepen our understanding of our collections while engaging with climate change and socioeconomic inequity in quantifiable ways. 4

A courageous if controversial statement—Hernandez-Eli is also on record as noting that “who makes those walls is as important as who you put on those walls”—but one that in some ways channels the priorities of the Met’s founders. The museum “should serve not only for the instruction and entertainment of the people,” intoned the lawyer and diplomat Joseph Hodges Choate at the museum’s dedication in March 1880, “but should also show to the students and artisans of every branch of industry…what the past has accomplished for them to imitate and excel.”

There are many reasons for visiting the new galleries: the lighting is radiant, the displays are generous and informative, and the emphasis on quality, beauty, and art history is commendable. (The museum also hopes that the reinstallation will encourage visitors to look “more deeply into histories of class, gender, race, and religion.”) Tomkins worried in 1970 that the popularity and success of civic juggernauts like the Met might diminish, if not destroy, the intimacy of close looking and aesthetic engagement that art museums offer:

What kind of privacy is possible on Sunday afternoons at the Metropolitan, when the concentration of sixty or seventy or eighty thousand people in the galleries make it nearly impossible to view the works of art?

While crowding and access are legitimate concerns, particularly for temporary exhibitions, the European Paintings galleries were not excessively trafficked on any of my recent visits. However, such is the depth, range, and interest of the newly shown collection that to try to cover the entire wing in one go is a challenge to the eyes, mind, and feet. Repeat visits are recommended.

Happily, the Met’s audience is famously resilient, as the playwright Alan Bennett noted after an afternoon spent at the exhibition “Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor” in October 2007. “The museum is teeming with visitors, a terminus of art,” he confided to his diary, “and what strikes one…is the stamina of older women, the worn-out men trailing in the wake of their wives still eager, still determined on self-improvement, still keen to know.” 5

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Colin B. Bailey is the Katherine J. Rayner Director of the Morgan Library and Museum. His books include Patriotic Taste: Collecting Modern Art in Pre-Revolutionary Paris and Renoir: Impressionism and Full-Length Painting . (June 2024)

Karen Wilkin, “The Met’s Grand Tour,” The New Criterion , February 2024.  ↩

Ada Louise Huxtable, “The New Galleries Are ‘Near Perfect,’” The New York Times , March 23, 1980.  ↩

Grace Glueck, “Lehman Art Collection Is Given to the Metropolitan,” The New York Times , September 26, 1969. The collection of over three thousand works of Western European art from the twelfth to the twentieth century—half of which were drawings—had been started by Lehman’s father, Philip Lehman, cofounder of the investment bank Lehman Brothers, who began acquiring early Italian art of the highest quality in 1911.  ↩

Jhaelen Hernandez-Eli, “Building Tomorrow’s Met,” December 6, 2022, metmuseum .org.   ↩

Alan Bennett, Keeping On Keeping On (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017), p. 126.  ↩

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