Despite acquiring GSP+ status in 2014, economic diversification has yet to happen in Pakistan. Pakistan economy is still mainly based on the agriculture and textile industry. Agriculture was a primary economic source from its creation, contributed 50% to the GDP till 1950s. In 1960s and 1980s, with the Green Revolution and Cotton Boom textile sector developed to become Pakistan largest export commodity, contributing 60% of Pakistan’s in 2025. Pakistan only reliance on these two sectors for 7 decades is jeopardizing its economic diversification. However, global dynamics and factors like climatic disasters, food insecurity, regional inactivity and IMF are now disproportionally affecting Pakistan’s position further to diversify its economy. South Asia is the one of the climate vulnerable region in the world, floods 2022 and prolonged droughts have led to reduced crop output, threatening national food security and shrinking export revenues. 2022 floods submerged 2.3 million hectares of farmland, affecting 33 million people and causing over US $15 billion in economic damage. Wheat is cultivated in ~9 million hectares (~40 % of all arable land) and meets about 37-42 % of domestic food need, but yields decline steeply at an increase of ~5.7 % per 1C elevation. Unpredictable Rainfall: rainfall between Sept 2024 and Jan 2025 was 40 percent below average, which was 52 percent below average in Sindh, 35 percent below average in Punjab and 45 percent below average in Baluchistan.
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Projections indicate crop GDP losses of 8–10% annually by 2030 without adaptation, and wheat yields may fall up to 50% by 2050 under current warming trends if this will continue. Currently Pakistan does not have sufficient funding in its National Adaptation Plan, which estimates that it would graduate US 86 billion by the year 2030. Although a range of strategies to deal with climate and disaster have been adopted since 1985 including the Dhaka Action Plan, regional early-warning systems under SAARC, regional and international responses to disasters such as to the Asian tsunami, SAARC has been incapable of taking any meaningful action in the area and most of its key institutions continue to be dysfunctional including the Food Bank and Meteorological Centre. The rising tension between India and Pakistan means that since the Kathmandu Summit in 2014, there has been no forward action on cumulative climate action because it lacks a coherent voice in world bodies such as the UNFCCC.
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In the case of Pakistan, which is climate-vulnerable, the effects of dormancy are drastic, amounting to complete inability to utilize regional instruments of support in the glaciers monitoring, flood management, and adaptation funding. As a result, Pakistan’s despite reiterated its commitment to SAARC, believes in inclusive regionalism however its climate diplomacy is weakened by the absence of a functional regional platform. Now, Pakistan, China and Bangladesh are possibly exploring a new regional bloc to foster regional integration. Impact on Pakistani society is far-reaching climate change has worsened the human security crisis in Pakistan due to failure to co-ordinate action in the region. Lacking mutual adaptation and early-warning system, climate-related catastrophes, such the floods that occurred in 2022 that left more than 8 million individuals displaced, those remain the cause of gigantic internal migration. Coastal erosion and subsidence in Sindh and salinity building up in delta areas are causing rural populations to leave their agricultural lands and hence there is rural outmigration with no migrant resettlement in the cards. This uncontrolled migration is a source of environmental conflict risks, who compete more over water, urban jobs and housing. Pakistan does not have national climate migration policy and regional migration and disaster resilience frameworks of SAARC are not operationalized. As a result, Pakistan is experiencing Tide of Climate-Induced Instability and undercutting SDG 13 (Climate Action) and Human security, at large, and there is no regional framework in place that can merely absorb or counter such cross-boundary and domestic risks.
