When the Land Burns and the Ice Melts

Pakistan is not simply experiencing another hot summer. A convergence of climate drivers is pushing the country toward a compound emergency, and provincial governments are running out of time to prepare.

The data is no longer a matter of scientific curiosity. It is a siren. In April 2025, national temperatures sat 3.37 degrees Celsius above the long-term average, the second-highest anomaly in 65 years. Over a thousand people died from heat-related causes that season, with Karachi alone recording more than 500 fatalities in a single six-day stretch. And yet, everything we now understand about ocean-atmosphere dynamics, global warming trajectories, and urban heat amplification tells us that 2026 will be worse. Significantly worse.

A “super” El Niño pattern is consolidating in the Pacific, and historical evidence links such events to hotter, drier pre-monsoon periods over South Asia. High-pressure ridges are expected to camp over the country for weeks, suppressing cloud formation and starving large swathes of the Indus plain of the relief that intermittent rain usually brings. On the ground, the concrete expanses of Lahore, Karachi and Peshawar will function as heat multipliers, trapping warmth through the urban heat island effect and pushing neighbourhood-level temperatures four to seven degrees beyond what the surrounding countryside experiences. The stage is set for a crisis that is as foreseeable as it is dangerous.

Temperature projections, derived from statistically downscaled CMIP6 multi-model ensembles, paint a granular and alarming picture. In Punjab, maximums are expected to reach 45 to 46 degrees Celsius in June and July, with some stations recording four to six degrees above normal. Jacobabad and Larkana may breach 49 degrees, while Karachi’s marine-influenced high thirties will be made lethal by suffocating humidity. Even the northern mountains, long imagined as a refuge from the plains' extremes, are not spared. Glacial melt is accelerating across Gilgit-Baltistan and upper Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where rising temperatures threaten to rapidly enlarge more than three thousand glacial lakes. At least 33 of these have been classified as being at high risk of bursting.

What makes this moment different is the conversion of meteorological data into probabilistic risk. Our assessment, based on current trajectories and precedent, suggests a greater than 80 per cent likelihood of a mass-casualty heatwave this summer. The probability of a destructive glacial lake outburst flood sits between 60 and 75 per cent, and the chance of severe drought-like conditions triggering widespread crop failure in south Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan is estimated at 65 to 80 per cent. These are not remote, worst-case figures. They are the central estimate of a system under strain.

The cascading impacts will not fall equally. The most vulnerable are the smallholder farmers and landless labourers of DG Khan, Rahim Yar Khan and Tharparkar, whose livestock and crops have no resilience against weeks of scorching air and absent irrigation. In cities, the elderly, children, and those with chronic illnesses, crammed into informal settlements without reliable electricity or water, will bear the heaviest health burden. Hospitals are already stretched; a dramatic spike in heatstroke and cardiovascular emergencies—the 2025 season saw around 80,000 people treated for heat-related illnesses—will overwhelm them if preparations remain rhetorical. The education system will also buckle again, with 20 to 25 teaching days likely to be lost as schools close, and millions of children, especially the already 26 million out of school, pushed further from any stable learning environment.

What must be done is not mysterious. It demands the kind of governance coherence that has so far been episodic. First, provincial governments must operationalise and fund the heat action plans that exist on paper, particularly in Sindh, while replicating them urgently across south Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This includes establishing clear command chains, designating cooling centres in every union council, and prepositioning intravenous fluids, oral rehydration salts and cold packs before May arrives. Uninterrupted power supply to hospitals must be treated as a non-negotiable public safety obligation, not a commercial consideration.

Second, infrastructure hardening can no longer wait. Mandating cool roofing, reflective building materials and urban greening through updated building by-laws is one of the most cost-effective ways to lower ambient temperatures in densely populated low-income areas. The DG Khan District Adaptation Plan, which integrates climate-smart agriculture, water management and livelihood diversification, offers a ready template that should be replicated immediately across a dozen high-risk districts such as Jacobabad, Bahawalpur and Khuzdar.

Third, communication must be localised and relentless. A pre-monsoon campaign in regional languages, delivered through lady health workers, community radio and SMS, teaching people how to recognise heatstroke, prepare oral rehydration solution at home and schedule outdoor work around cooler hours, is a proven and affordable lifesaver.

Finally, educational institutions require structural reform. The annual academic calendar needs to be permanently adjusted, perhaps by starting classes in late July and concluding before the peak heat of May, with formal “climate buffer” days embedded in the timetable. Simultaneously, a retrofitting programme focused on improved ventilation, shaded courtyards and reflective roofs should be rolled out in government schools, turning them into safe havens rather than heat traps. Every child who sits in a classroom must also learn the science of what is happening to their planet and the practical steps of keeping themselves and their families safe.

This is no longer a weather story. It is a structural test of how the Pakistani state and society adapt to an era where the very air outside becomes a threat. The models are clear, the probabilities are quantified, and the warning has been sounded. What remains is the courage to act before the mercury renders the point moot.