Press Release
LAHORE:
Leading climate experts and policymakers called for a fundamental shift in Pakistan’s approach to flood management and demanded climate justice from high-emission nations.
The speakers made this demand in a session titled “Living with Floods in a Climate Change Present” at the Asma Jahangir Conference in Lahore on February 8. The session was held under the theme of Climate Change.
The distinguished panel—moderated by senior environmental journalist Afia Salam—resolved that Pakistan must abandon reactive, scientifically inadequate responses to flooding in favor of rational policies that work with nature rather than against it. The speakers emphasized the need to recognize the crisis as intersectional and unanimously called for the elimination of elite capture to ensure just responses to climate-induced disasters.
Federal Minister for Climate Change Musadik Malik delivered the keynote address, highlighting the stark inequities in global climate finance.
“The ten countries that emit more than 70 percent of global carbon emissions are receiving 85 percent of green financing. These powerful countries are driving the climate crisis, yet when it comes to rehabilitation and loss-and-damage funds for vulnerable countries like ours, we are told to apply for loans. This only deepens our debt burden and increases the cost of interest repayments.”
Minister Malik presented sobering statistics about lives lost and people injured in the last four floods in Pakistan. “6,000 people have lost their lives in the last four floods in Pakistan and 19,000 were disabled in the floods. The impact of climate change is greater than terrorism.” He noted that approximately 40 million people were displaced across the last four floods, with 50 percent being school-going children, resulting in 1.8 billion lost school days.
“Pakistan emits 0.6 to 0.8 percent of global carbon emissions while two countries bordering our country emit 40 percent of global carbon emissions,” Malik stated, outlining Pakistan’s three-pronged strategy focusing on immediate damage repair, infrastructure improvement, and long-term dam construction.
Professor Dr. Daanish Mustafa from King’s College London challenged the colonial-era paradigm of flood control.
“For over six thousand years in the Indo Pakistan subcontinent floods were considered a boon for agriculture. 150 years ago, the colonial British government built canals, barrages, and dams to end the uncertainty of monsoon rains and floods for farming in the Indo-Pak subcontinent.”
He warned that if governments continue with the paradigm set by British colonists for taming the rivers, it would lead to further destruction in the coming years. “After a low-level flood, a farmer does not need to use fertilizers for the next five years. The problem arises when high-level functionaries urge authorities to build housing societies in the river beds to solve the crisis of flooding. Such thinking means the funeral of sciences.”
Dr. Hassan Abbas, Founding Chairman of ZiZAK (Pvt) Ltd., emphasized the need to work with natural systems.
“Since mid-twentieth century the humans have been trying to control the rivers, deciding which rivers will flow or not. This is destroying the natural ecology. We have forgotten these river systems are working for the last 50 million years,” Abbas said.
Dr. Abbas advocated for a paradigm shift in Pakistan approach to handling climate change and floods. “Pakistan must move towards a ground water system that has a storage of three years. The ground water system also absorbs floods, maintains your wetlands, rejuvenates the farmlands, makes you drought-proof and flood resilient.” He noted critically that “Pakistan has not a single hydrology geologist to design ground water use for cultivation.”
Dr. Fazilda Nabeel, Climate and Water Governance Expert and LUMS Adjunct Faculty, stressed the human-nature interface. “The 2025 riverine flooding came from the dead eastern rivers. The land use patterns signal where the most destruction happened in floods. We need to be cognizant of the relationship between man and nature.”
Samuel Rizk, UNDP Resident Representative in Pakistan, framed the issue as a matter of human rights.
“There is a violation of human rights if people are not protected from a calamity. We had not recovered from the 2022 floods when we witnessed the 2025 floods. The delay in recovery for flood victims is an injustice.”
Rizk noted a significant shift in international response to the 2025 floods in Pakistan. “In 2025, the global situation financially towards countries under distress changed drastically. There was not much funding to go around. Pakistani officials told us that the lesson learned was not to jump to international funding but to focus on governance.”
The session underscored the urgent need for Pakistan to develop science-based, nature-aligned flood management strategies while continuing to advocate for climate justice on the global stage.
The Asma Jahangir Conference, named after Pakistan’s legendary human rights defender, continues to provide a platform for critical discussions on constitutional rights, civil liberties, and federal-provincial relations. The two-day event, titled “Erosion of Fundamental Rights and Resistance Across Borders,” was organized in collaboration with the Supreme Court Bar Association and Pakistan Bar Council. Prominent themes of the conference included free speech and expression, gender discrimination, vulnerable communities, breach of international law, climate change, and the right to a fair trial.