The fury of this year’s monsoon has left vast swathes of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab in ruin, with rivers in flood, homes washed away, and hundreds of lives lost. The relief agencies may be racing against time to provide assistance, but the sheer scale of the devastation tells its own story: climate change is no longer an abstract concern for Pakistan; it is a national emergency.
If the rising death toll, destroyed livelihoods, and shattered infrastructure are not enough to jolt the sceptics from their comfortable denial, then what exactly will? Each year, we rehearse the same grim ritual—disaster strikes, the state scrambles, and the people suffer. We express sympathy, we mobilise aid, and then, once the waters recede, we return to business as usual until the next calamity. This cycle of reaction over preparation is not just unsustainable, it is suicidal.
We must acknowledge a sobering truth: climate change will only intensify in the years ahead. More rain, more floods, more destruction, this is not speculation but inevitability. To face it with little more than prayers and ad hoc relief efforts is akin to using a bucket to bail out a sinking ship. What is urgently required is the institutionalisation of emergency systems that can be activated the moment forecasts point to danger. Early warning, pre-emptive evacuation, robust infrastructure, and coordinated disaster management must move from paper promises to lived realities. Simultaneously, mitigation measures, ranging from climate-resilient urban planning to watershed management, are essential for survival, not luxury.
This year’s floods should not just be mourned; they should be remembered as a turning point. If we continue to dismiss climate change as an afterthought, the waters will keep rising, not only over our fields and homes, but over the very possibility of a secure future.