Experts at a Sustainable Development Policy Institute webinar urged immediate action on climate mobility, calling for planned movement strategies, better data collection and coordinated policy to cope with increasing climate induced displacement in Punjab. Speakers highlighted how heavy monsoon rains and unprecedented 2025 downpours displaced large populations and warned that National Disaster Management Authority forecasts further abrupt rainfall, prompting a push for preemptive measures.<\/p>\n
Maryam Shabbir Abbasi<\/strong>, associate research fellow at SDPI and advisory member to the Environmental Justice Council in Vermont, said the terminology varies but the issue is clear: climate mobility is accelerating as floods, droughts and heatwaves intensify. She noted that around 523,000 people were displaced during the 2025 floods across six districts of southern Punjab, naming Muzaffargarh, Dera Ghazi Khan, Jhang and Rahim Yar Khan among the worst affected. Rural households forced from their homes often move to cities without planning or resources, increasing risks of exploitation, malnutrition and higher infant mortality.<\/p>\n Speakers repeatedly flagged the absence of reliable datasets to track displaced populations. They said extreme rainfall, riverine flooding, drought and heatwaves are primary drivers of movement and that many displaced families end up in informal settlements, adding strain to urban services and infrastructure.<\/p>\n Mehak Masood<\/strong> of the International Organization for Migration argued that climate mobility better captures the complexity of both planned migration and sudden displacement. She pointed to global estimates that climate impacts could internally displace as many as 260 million people by 2050 and referenced Pakistan’s 2022 floods, which affected 33 million people and displaced nearly 8 million. Masood urged recognition of mobility within Pakistan’s National Adaptation Plan, welcomed Punjab’s Climate Resilient Plan, and stressed the need for data driven projections. She also noted a Pakistan Synergy Mobility Group white paper promoting localized solutions and safe livelihood options for movers.<\/p>\n Zulfiqar Kumbhar<\/strong>, an environmental journalist, warned that climate migration remains underreported in Sindh despite repeated shocks since 2010. He described diverse categories of climate migrants and highlighted nearly 160,000 people living in settlements along a 10 kilometre stretch of the Super Highway, communities that remain largely invisible to official records and dependent on philanthropy rather than sustained government support.<\/p>\n Dr Amber Raheel<\/strong>, director of Environment and Climate Change Research EP&CCD Punjab, described climate induced migration as an emerging policy challenge that requires an interdepartmental response. She acknowledged major data gaps and said provincial departments including PDMA hold limited information on displaced groups. Dr Raheel reported that PDMA had rescued around 0.7 million people from disaster hit areas and that nearly 0.6 million had been relocated to temporary shelters. She added that Punjab is preparing its first Heatwave Management Plan with the Pakistan Meteorological Department, revising thresholds for better preparedness, drafting a Climate Change Act to set statutory rules and private sector engagement, and establishing a Punjab Climate Observatory to deliver real time climate data for evidence based policymaking.<\/p>\n Dr Shafqat Munir Ahmed<\/strong>, SDPI deputy executive director (policy), said climate migration has been part of international climate discussions for decades and noted that Punjab’s presence at COP30 under chief minister Maryam Nawaz signals growing official recognition of recurring shocks in southern Punjab. He framed migration as a form of loss and damage and argued that anticipatory action frameworks and preemptive planning can reduce displacement risks, save lives and enable more organised, resource efficient relocation of affected communities. The experts agreed that strengthening climate mobility planning and delivering timely data through the planned observatory are central to protecting vulnerable households and managing future climate shocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Punjab strengthens climate mobility with a new Climate Observatory and data driven planning to reduce displacement and protect vulnerable communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}