Islamabad-UNS: Chairperson of the Senate Standing Committee on Climate Change, Senator Sherry Rehman issued a grave and urgent call for collective climate action her keynote address at the National Conference titled “Pakistan’s Final Warning: Climate Calamity or Collective Action.” With Pakistan now alarmingly ranked #1 on the Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index 2025, Senator Rehman laid out five strategic actions the country must urgently adopt to confront what she termed a “cascading polycrisis.”
“We must end the cognitive disconnect between extreme weather emergencies and climate trends. This is crucial because it means linking symptom to responsibility. Without real commitment to understanding the crisis, no sustained action will follow any climate whiplash,” she said.
Despite unprecedented climate shocks — including the 2022 super floods, which left over 33 million Pakistanis affected, and rising heatwaves crossing 50°C, Senator Rehman observed a troubling silence in policy corridors.
“I see no alarm bells ringing anywhere in power corridors. No budgets are being recalibrated for coping better with crisis,” she noted. “Climate will continue to be called ‘Mausam’ or Weather, which is a symptom of climate change. These are not isolated natural disasters, they are interlinked systems failures.”
She stressed that public rhetoric must evolve into a lived experience of accountability and action.
“The sooner we accept that, the sooner soundbite jargon will translate into lived experience and action. It’s time to move beyond the obligatory token nod to innovative action roadmaps.”
Focusing on the magnitude of climate impacts, Senator Rehman stated:
“Scale is the enemy as well as the friend. Climate stress is high in both scale and impact for Pakistan. It already showed its muscle flex in 2022. Lessons learnt are being lost in transmission.”
