THE 2026 monsoon season arrived in early July with a familiar pattern of destruction. Since June 26, torrential rains, cloudbursts, flash floods and landslides have killed over 122 people across Pakistan, with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab suffering the heaviest losses. With the monsoon still underway, further damage remains a concern. Pakistan has faced heavy monsoon rains and flooding for decades, long before climate change became a major global concern. Climate change is real and intensifying weather-related hazards, but attributing every disaster to it risks overlooking another critical factor: inadequate governance and preparedness. The recurring losses demand stronger preventive measures and greater institutional accountability.
As early as November 2025, NDMA had formally warned that the 2026 monsoon would bring 22 to 26 percent more rainfall than the previous year. The NDMA Chairperson further cautioned that Pakistan’s more than 7,000 glaciers are melting at increasing rates and that heat waves would likely trigger Glacier Lake Outburst Floods across the northern areas. These warnings were available to the federal and provincial governments well in advance of the monsoon season. The real question is: what concrete preparedness measures were taken between November 2025 and July 2026? There is no satisfactory answer.
Having a Climate Change Ministry, NDMA and other organisations has not served the real objectives. Warnings about monsoon rains and likely hazards could largely be provided by the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD), which has existed for decades and has performed an excellent job of forewarning the government and public. PMD is an autonomous institution responsible for weather forecasting, public warnings and safety information. Today, more or less the same functions are performed by the Ministry of Climate Change and NDMA alongside PMD, creating duplication among three federal institutions. All three issue warnings and later provide estimates of losses based on information received from provincial governments and district administrations. This duplication raises questions about institutional efficiency, coordination and accountability in disaster preparedness.
There is no denial that climate change is real and causing disaster at the international level, including in the developed world. Like elsewhere in the world, Pakistan is also facing the horrors of climate change. The 2022 floods killed over 1,700 people, submerged one-third of the country, affected more than 33 million people and caused economic losses exceeding $30 billion. The 2025 monsoon killed over 1,037 people and displaced approximately 2.9 million at the peak of the disaster.
Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister himself acknowledged that in the past three to four major floods, 4,570 people have lost their lives — more than Pakistan has lost in its wars — and an estimated 40 million people have been displaced over the same period. After successive years of such losses, we are again facing similar threats in 2026. The question which must be answered is: what preventive measures have been taken by successive governments to stop or at least minimize the impacts of these recurring disasters?
Climate change is real and has been intensified by human activity, including deforestation, carbon emissions, conversion of agricultural land into housing societies and, above all, obstruction of natural drainage systems. The unchecked continuation of these practices has magnified the damage caused by extreme weather. Climate change is therefore not merely an environmental concern but a national security issue for Pakistan, affecting food, water and energy security while driving internal displacement and cross-border migration.
Food and water insecurity, increasingly linked to climate-related pressures, can also deepen social tensions and existing ethnic and provincial fault lines. Pakistan’s vulnerability is compounded by recurring floods and other disasters that place additional demands on state institutions and the armed forces, which frequently assist civil administrations during emergencies. Addressing climate change consequently requires a broader national security approach, combining environmental protection, disaster preparedness, resource management and measures to reduce the social and economic pressures caused by climate-related displacement.
Pakistan has been facing the challenges of climate change for many decades, with the 2022 massive flooding being the most severe in recent memory. Thereafter, the federal and provincial governments should have been fully prepared to meet the challenges of each subsequent monsoon season. Blaming climate change for the repeated losses of human beings and property does not absolve governments of their primary responsibility for the safety and security of the state and its masses. There has to be accountability of all those who spent billions of rupees on image-building through media projections while doing nothing meaningful to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The looming threat from climate change demands that Pakistan formulates and implement short-, medium- and long-term strategies to minimise its impacts. These should include consolidating NDMA, the Ministry of Climate Change and PMD into a single, accountable authority to eliminate duplication and ensure genuine preparedness; identifying sites for small and medium-sized reservoirs and dams to control floodwater and support irrigation, drinking water and hydropower; strictly enforcing environmental regulations and prohibiting construction on riverbeds and natural waterways; halting deforestation and launching large-scale reforestation in KP, AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan; and holding accountable those involved in deforestation, illegal land allotments and obstruction of natural drainage systems. Unless urgent and sincere action is taken, recurring floods will continue to devastate Pakistan, exposing millions to avoidable suffering, displacement and loss.
— The writer is Professor of Politics and IR at International Islamic University, Islamabad.
