Climate-induced Destruction
Imagine a quiet April afternoon in Islamabad and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa—when, out of nowhere, freak golf-sized hailstones began to fall, causing massive damage to infrastructure, smashing car windshields, and ruining solar panels, leaving everyone wondering: Could this have been avoided? Despite the press release by the Pakistan Meteorological Department on 15th April 2025, and an early warning issued by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) on 16th April 2025, the question arises: Was this early warning adequate for the masses? Was it possible to forewarn people ahead of time and then undertake a campaign to ensure that the warnings were taken seriously?
From rooted-out trees to flash flooding across KPK and Islamabad, the destruction seconds nothing but the extreme weather patterns that are a consequence of global warming, as mentioned in the Global Risks Report 2025. Regardless of existing technologies and forecasting systems, the massive destruction highlights the absence of coordinated communication among government departments, poor spread of warning alerts, and a lack of institutional and public climate preparedness.
These shortcomings highlight the dire need to strengthen Pakistan’s weather resilience through revamped forecasting systems, technological innovation, integration of green infrastructure, a paradigm shift from a reactive to a proactive approach, augmented community preparedness, and robust implementation of the 4RF framework – a well-thought-out document prepared post-2022 floods to counter climate effects.
A Vulnerable Country
As per the Global Climate Risk Index, Pakistan is the fifth most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change. The increasing emissions of greenhouse gases due to anthropogenic activities contribute to the overall increase in global temperature, thereby exacerbating already deteriorating human security. Being a transnational phenomenon, global warming is intensifying weather patterns in Pakistan, as demonstrated by April’s destructive hailstorm.
The unexpected hailstorm that hit the federal capital was caused by vertical instability when cold winds from Iran clashed with hot air from Southern Punjab. The clash of such contrasting temperatures set the perfect conditions for the formation of giant hailstones. The probability of occurrence of related hailstorms is predicted by pseudo-global warming (PGWA) scientific simulations. According to PGWA, the adverse weather patterns compounded with climate change will lead to a 30% rise in the probability of giant hail events.
Outdated Systems
Despite being one of the least contributors to global carbon emissions, Pakistan’s deteriorating environmental security and vulnerability to climate-related risks are magnified by inward systemic gaps. There exist outdated technology and forecasting inadequacies in Pakistan’s current weather forecasting system. As a result, the probability of giving accurate predictions decreases, as does the public trust.
The recommended number of weather stations is around 353 for a country like Pakistan, but the Pakistan Meteorological Department relies on a sparse network of stations. In the year 2024, PMD collaborated with the World Bank on a 50 million USD modernization project; however, the absence of an indigenous forecasting model still exists. The question of whether or not PMD will be revolutionized by utilizing the amount remains unaddressed. Sending generalized SMS alerts and issuing non-specific early warnings fail to serve the purpose.
The absence of actionable advisories results in low public responsiveness, as evidenced by the havoc caused by the hailstorm on 16th April 2025. Moreover, after the hailstorm event, PMD and NDMA started issuing exaggerated warnings with no comparable consequence, leading to public desensitization and institutional credibility loss. This is backed by the findings of a study highlighting the nexus between false warnings and eroded public trust. It describes how inconsistent forecasting negatively impacts user trust.
Recommendations
While climate-induced threats may not be entirely avoidable, the impacts can be mitigated by taking the following measures. There is a need to develop synergy among governance institutions, media, civil society, tech, and the private sector. A centralized climate resilience authority and AI-driven models similar to Aardvark should be used to complement the forecasting system of Pakistan. Such tools use minimal computing resources and predict ten times faster.
Machine learning models like the Random Forest model can be used for accurate predictions and the provision of information for disaster management in Pakistan. This is not an era for half-measures—it’s an era for bold, creative solutions to protect the lives and livelihoods of millions of Pakistanis. Partnership with digital private weather service providers like WeatherWalay needs to be fostered, and user-friendly mobile applications having alerts in different languages need to be developed.
For public awareness, media channels need to promote precautionary measures adapted to the risks. These synchronized efforts, coupled with hail suppression via cloud seeding, can further alleviate the damage. Deducing from a study about the hail suppression program in Alberta, cloud seeding can reduce the size of large hail embryos, thereby reducing the severity of hailstorms in the future. Similarly, hail cannoning can be used as a technique to prevent cloud formation before a hailstorm.
Lastly, urban planning and green infrastructure development should be positioned as a priority under the broader umbrella of non-traditional security. This approach is not just about fighting nature; it’s about working with nature to minimize the destructive impacts of extreme weather. In addition to the aforementioned solutions, a synergy among stakeholders has to be developed, or else the issue of climate governance in Pakistan will continue to prevail.
If you want to submit your articles and/or research papers, please visit the Submissions page.
To stay updated with the latest jobs, CSS news, internships, scholarships, and current affairs articles, join our Community Forum!
The views and opinions expressed in this article/paper are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Paradigm Shift.
Tehreem Tariq, currently working as a researcher, is pursuing her MS in Peace and Conflict Studies at CIPS, NUST, with expertise in non-traditional security. As an OSINT analyst, she contributed to post-conflict reconstruction reports with a focus on environmental governance as a peacebuilding tool. She was awarded the HSF Research Fellowship 2024 for her research on green finance and its role across Pakistan’s banking sector. Her work explores the intersection of green diplomacy, green finance, and the gender-climate nexus. She has published a book review of UN Peace Operations and International Relations Theory. Her work advocates for proactive governance and institutional collaboration for climate and security challenges.