Climate change threatens economic sustainability, says Aurangzeb

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Friday termed climate change as an “existential threat” that could undermine the government’s economic sustainability goals.

Aurangzeb made these remarks while addressing a high-level event being organised by the Ministry of Climate Change & Environmental Coordination to celebrate the World Day of Glaciers.

The finance minister highlighted the government’s economic turnaround efforts, including structural reforms.

“These are the right things to do, and our economy will be in a very good place”.

He said that the country’s economy has already achieved stability on a macro side. “But ultimately, if we do not manage this existential threat the sustainability of the economic growth that we are looking for will not come through.”

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Pakistan ranks among the top 10 most vulnerable countries to climate change, despite contributing less than 1% to global greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the economic survey of Pakistan 2024-25, unpredictable weather patterns, resulting in flash floods, droughts, glacial lake outbursts, intense heat waves, and erratic rainfall as destructive effects of climate change.

Addressing the attendees, Aurangzeb said that at a macro level, “we have the NDCs, the National Adaptation Plan. In Baku we rolled out the national climate finance strategy, so a lot of these building blocks are in place”.

Despite these efforts, Aurangzeb acknowledged that there is “a yawning gap” in terms of climate finance for Pakistan.

“We are moving in the right direction, but we still have a long way to go when it comes to fulfilling the financing gap,” he said while lauding the role of the World Bank Group for the 10-year Country Partnership Framework, in which 2 out of the 6 focal points deal with climate change.

He said that Pakistan has over 3,000 glacial lakes, “33 of which are highly volatile and putting at least 7 million people in grave danger. These are alarming statistics.”