Introduction Climate Crisis

In August 2022, torrential monsoon rains triggered the most devastating floods in Pakistan’s history. Over 33 million people were affected by the floodwaters — a staggering number close to the population of Canada. Our teams on the ground were quick to respond, providing close to one million Pakistanis with emergency food, water, shelter, and life-saving assistance.

We heard from many individuals who were impacted, including one man in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who told us, “I’ve been living in this area since birth and experienced the 2010 flood and the ones before… but this one was so much more destructive because of how long the water stayed, and how high it was — 8 to 15 feet tall. Entire neighborhoods are under water.”

The 2022 floods, however, did not occur in a vacuum and were not an isolated event. As experts have noted, the 2022 floods were made significantly worse by human-caused climate change.1 As this report reveals, through data collected prior to the flood emergency, the region has been deeply affected by climate change.

Pakistan produces less than 1% of the world’s carbon footprint yet is suffering the biggest consequences of climate change. According to the Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan is currently the fifth most climate-vulnerable country in the world, having lost nearly ten thousand lives and suffering economic losses worth 3.8 billion USD due to climate change throughout the years 1999 to 2018.2

Changing seasonal weather patterns, rising temperatures, variability of monsoons and melting of glaciers in the north — compounded with recurrent extreme weather events and natural disasters — are just some of the effects of climate change that Pakistan has been forced to contend with in recent years.

Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), is likewise grappling with the same effects of climate change through changes in seasonal patterns and periodic natural disasters that have resulted in catastrophic landslides, flash flooding and water scarcity — among other problems.