The Political Economy of Climate Change and Pakistan’s Pursuit of Sustainable Development

Abstract

A complex of relations between the political economy of Pakistan and the growing threats of global warming is irreducibly entangled in the quest of sustainable development in this country. Pakistan is one of the country’s most vulnerable to environmental shocks " due to floods and droughts, to rising temperatures when it comes to governing climate " yet it is haunted by institutional incoherence, absence of financial resources and political will. This paper aims at examining the role played by political and economic institutions in Pakistan in its ability to design and implement climate related policies that are aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This analysis illustrates the lack of correspondence between the preferred policy vision and the operational facts based only on Green Theory as the major theoretical framework. Though the national plans, including the National Climate Change Policy and Vision 2025, articulate the sustainable development stories, the execution process is marred with lack of proper coordination among the agencies, the existing limitations in external borrowing, and inappropriateness of international climate funding. The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has reiterated that climate resilience is important to Pakistan, especially when it comes to dealing with the effects of a natural disaster. Moreover, the Ministry of Climate Change has raised the issue of the necessity of a more integrated and holistic approach to climate change adaptation in accordance with international climate agreements. By relying on a Qualitative research approach, thematic analysis, it will be able to determine the gaps in governance, stakeholder relationships and financial limitations. They demonstrate the role of an elite-based agenda, coal-based growth under CPEC and unmet international assistance to curb any action on climate. The implications of these findings on integrated and contextualized climate-SDG nexus governance and policy reflections to inform inclusive, democratic, and country-specific solutions to sustainable development are apparent.