Peer Muhammad Baigal

Pakistan’s national elections are scheduled for February 8, 2024, but election manifestoes by the major parties were only released at the end of January. The Third Pole looks at how the major parties are – or are not – prioritising climate change in their manifestoes. The front runner PML-N’s ambitious manifesto Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) is considered a frontrunner to lead the next government.

Since March, major cities in Pakistan have experienced unseasonable and extremely high temperatures. However, farmers in the mountainous areas of the Upper Indus Basin in the Hindu Kush Himalayas have also been affected. Last winter there was heavy rain and snowfall in the mountainous northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan.

On 7 May, as Pakistan reeled under an unusually long and severe heatwave, an ice-dammed lake burst in the Hunza valley of northern Pakistan. The flood swept away a historic bridge on the Karakoram Highway, destroyed six houses in Hassanabad village, agricultural land, orchards and two hydropower projects. Despite the severity of the disaster, no lives were lost. This is because the flood did not take villagers by surprise. The Shishper glacier started to surge back in 2018.