May 22, 2025
ISLAMABAD – The disproportionate cost of climate change is not limited to class but also seeps into gender, where women, girls and transgenders face a higher risk.
Fareeha, 43, who lives in Karachi’s Ibrahim Hyderi with her family, remembers all too well what it feels like to walk on water, or wade through it. For generations, her family relied on Badin’s salty waters for fishing, but seawater intrusion turned freshwater ponds brackish and fertile lands barren.
This change, steady but not slow, left Fareeha in dire financial straits, forcing her husband and sons to work at brick kilns. But this wasn’t a permanent solution, she says. “The sea took our nets, then our dignity … we were eventually forced to move out.”
Fareeha’s plight resonates with almost 80 per cent of other fishing families in Badin, where, without compensation or adaptation, climate poverty has pushed hundreds into a chaotic storm of displacement.
While climate change is a global issue, its impacts, unfortunately, are spread disproportionately across the world. Despite having minimal contributions towards global greenhouse gas emissions, low-income countries tend to be extremely vulnerable to the disastrous effects of the crisis. Moreover, the increased frequency of extreme weather events, lack of resources and infrastructure, and limited access to climate finance make developing nations less resilient and more prone to climate poverty.
Pakistan is among these nations, having been ranked as the most vulnerable country to climate change in 2022, according to the Global Climate Risk Index 2025. The floods that submerged over a third of the country three years ago affected more than 33 million people, resulting in the loss of 1,700 lives and $30 billion.
At the same time, droughts in Sindh and Balochistan in recent years have made water increasingly scarce, leading to parched crops and rising food prices, highlighting Pakistan’s severe vulnerability to disasters driven by climate change.
At the same time, climate change also deepens pre-existing inequalities, with marginalised communities facing a greater burden. Their vulnerabilities increase due to a myriad of socio-economic factors such as gender, ethnicity, and low income, which traps communities into a vicious web of climate poverty — when the conditions stemming from climate change destroy livelihoods, increase food and water scarcity, and displace communities.
According to the World Bank Group’s Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for Pakistan, “the combined risks of extreme climate-related events, environmental degradation, and air pollution are projected to reduce Pakistan’s GDP [gross domestic product] by at least 18pc to 20pc by 2050.” This will significantly slow down economic progress and hinder efforts towards poverty reduction.
Engineered, not accidental
In Pakistan, 40 per cent of the population is highly vulnerable and frequently exposed to climate-induced disasters, including floods, cyclones, droughts, heavy rain spells, and extreme heatwaves. Marginalised urban residents, indigenous rural communities, small-scale farmers, and fisherfolk are among those at high risk.
A research report by Oxfam studying Pakistan’s rural disaster-prone communities in Badin (Sindh), Rajanpur (Punjab), and Khuzdar (Balochistan) found that they bore the brunt of climate-induced displacement, food insecurity and economic instability. In Badin, seawater intrusion has degraded freshwater resources, reducing fish and prawn catches and leaving many fisherfolk struggling to sustain their livelihoods. The increased frequency of cyclones and storms has further displaced coastal populations, many of whom lack the resources to adapt or migrate.
In Rajanpur, erratic rainfall patterns and intense flooding have destroyed agricultural lands, making it increasingly difficult for farmers to predict sowing and harvesting cycles. Meanwhile, prolonged droughts have rapidly depleted groundwater levels in Khuzdar, shrinking grazing lands and threatening livestock-dependent livelihoods. Across these regions, traditional methods are proving insufficient, pushing many families into seasonal migration in search of alternative sources of income.
In Pakistan’s urban centres, the poor are often pushed to the margins, forced to live in overcrowded, unsafe housing that not only endangers their lives but also intensifies the impact of climate-induced disasters. Take the port city Karachi as an example; prolonged power outages lasting between 10 to 16 hours severely impact low-income areas such as Shah Faisal Colony, Lyari, Bhit, and Baba Island.
These disruptions affect daily wage earners the most, making it increasingly difficult for them to sustain their livelihoods. Beyond economic strain, the lack of electricity poses serious health risks, particularly for the elderly, children, and pregnant women. With growing climate-related health issues, financial burdens worsen, trapping many in a relentless cycle of poverty.
In 2021, around 15,000 families living along the Gujjar and Orangi nullahs were displaced without rehabilitation in the name of flood mitigation and anti-encroachment campaigns. Government agencies seem to have not just failed in solving the housing crisis in the metropolis but also in implementing resettlement policies.
The authorities use the Supreme Court’s 2021 order of demolition while displacing people, but forget that the apex court had also issued directions for the resettlement and rehabilitation of the victims. To top it, the government displays impeccable punctuality and pace when it comes to demolition, while delaying tactics are used in relocation and resolution, keeping hundreds of families in limbo for years.
The impacts of climate change are also deeply intertwined with corporate accountability, such as the illegal development of Karachi’s waterfront, or Emaar’s $3 billion Bundal Island project, which blocks natural drainage and worsens urban flooding in nearby low-income communities.
This is why slum dwellers say, “As soon as the builders get permits, we (the poor and the vulnerable) get evicted.” Meanwhile, dozens of textile factories along Karachi’s Lyari River dump untreated sewage, making monsoon rains toxic, but that doesn’t even cross the ears of officials at Sindh’s Environmental Protection Agency (Sepa). It’s right to say that climate vulnerability is not accidental. In cities like Karachi, they are engineered.
Where resilience becomes resistance
Meanwhile, statistics issued by the Pakistan Disaster Management Authority show that around $50 million in the World Bank’s flood resilience funds are tied up in bureaucratic delays. It is evident; when institutions fail, the poor drown twice — first in floodwaters and then again in departmental negligence.
The disproportionate cost of climate change is not limited to class but also seeps into gender, where women and girls face a higher risk and challenge. The United Nations concurs, highlighting in various reports how women make up 80pc of those displaced by climate change. In Pakistan, it is the women in rural areas who are the most vulnerable.
According to a 2021 study on vulnerable communities in Sindh, declining agricultural productivity and men travelling in search of work have left women with the dual burden of managing domestic and financial responsibilities, worsening their vulnerability to food scarcity, malnutrition, and health complications.
The situation is no different in Balochistan. “Our men have migrated; we (the women) have stayed to fight for the land,” said Rozina, 51. She leads a women’s collective for drought-resistant millet cultivation in Khuzdar. Her efforts are at odds with a system that denies women land title and ownership.
“And it is this land that we (women) are protecting,” Rozina stressed.
For Pakistan’s transgender community, the situation is even worse. Facing immense stigma and marginalisation, they are disowned by their families, limiting their access to education, employment, and proper housing. As a result, they are forced to live in informal settlements or slums, which are particularly susceptible to climate-induced disasters such as floods and extreme heat waves.
Moreover, due to systemic discrimination and exclusion, many are unable to access government relief post-disasters, as highlighted in the devastating floods of 2022, with a majority of those affected unable to access relief programs due to the lack of official identification documents. According to an NGO working for transgenders, 95pc of flood victims were denied assistance, discriminated against or excluded by design.
Here, resilience is resistance.
The path to recovery
But is there a way out of this toxic and repetitive cycle? Yes.
A working paper titled ‘The 24-Hour Risk City: A Framework for Thinking About Building Infrastructures of Climate Repair in Nairobi and Karachi’ introduces the concept of climate repair, describing it as a practice of maintenance and repair that focuses on both human and environmental well-being in the face of climate risks. It is framed as an ethic of care, emphasising the importance of continuous and deliberate efforts to sustain and restore urban and ecological systems.
Climate repair involves three different dimensions: bodily and familial, infrastructural, and connective-communal repair, particularly in low-income settlements where inadequate infrastructures and governance failures leave communities more vulnerable.
The paper highlights that climate repair is a gendered practice, often carried out by women and marginalised communities who engage in everyday forms of care and adaptation to combat the effects of extreme weather events, urban flooding, and heatwaves, especially in the absence of governmental or institutional support.
Therefore, it underlines the need for a holistic approach in policymaking, including not only the improvement of physical infrastructure but also strengthening social networks and integrating local solutions to build resilience towards adverse climatic impacts.
Encompassing infrastructural resilience, socioeconomic empowerment, and participatory governance, the idea of climate repair recognises that the most vulnerable communities must be at the centre of climate action. This approach calls for bottom-up, participatory strategies that recognise and integrate the lived experiences of vulnerable communities, rather than relying solely on top-down policy interventions.
Policy reforms must prioritise climate justice, ensuring that climate adaptation and mitigation efforts do not further marginalise but pay special attention to women, the elderly, children and the transgender community — all of whom are at the forefront of vulnerability to climate poverty. Women, in particular, should be recognised as leaders in climate adaptation, as their roles in managing water, food security, and family resilience make them key agents of change.
The idea of climate repair can be extended to rural communities, exploring local practices and maintenance work being carried out by smallholder farmers and fisherfolk to adapt to climate change. Their elaborate efforts and often resource-efficient strategies can help guide effective policymaking and pro-poor, participatory government interventions.
The author is an urban planner and geographer, working as Associate Director/ GIS Analyst at the Karachi Urban Lab at IBA, Karachi. He can be reached @UrbanPlannerNED