Sustainability in the Shadow of Conflict: India and Pakistan’s Climate Crossroads

For decades, India and Pakistan have been locked in a tense rivalry – even as they share fragile ecosystems and face the same climate threats. Both countries rely on the Himalayan-fed Indus River basin, home to roughly 300 million people. Yet growing mistrust has begun to strain this century-old water pact and hampered any joint response to floods, heatwaves or pollution. Experts warn that without urgent cooperation on climate and environment, ordinary citizens will pay a heavy price – even as both governments continue to pour scarce funds into defense over sustainability.

Strains on the Indus Waters Treaty

The 1960 Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) has long been touted as a rare confidence-building measure between New Delhi and Islamabad. It divides six rivers – granting India full use of the eastern tributaries (Ravi, Beas and Sutlej) and Pakistan the western rivers (Indus, Jhelum, Chenab). In practice, India receives only about 19.5% of the Indus flow and Pakistan over 80%. For decades the two sides have used the treaty’s dispute-resolution process to address dam projects and irrigation works. But today the IWT is under unprecedented strain.

In recent years New Delhi has argued the treaty is outdated. A 2021 Indian parliamentary report formally recommended revising the IWT to account for climate change and “lessons learned” over 62 years. In January 2023 India even served notice on Pakistan seeking modifications to the water shares, arguing that growing water needs and climate risk make the original allocations untenable. Islamabad, however, has reacted with alarm. Pakistan’s economy and agriculture remain hugely dependent on the Indus (about 90% of its farm output and a quarter of GDP), and any cut in flows is seen as an existential threat. Rhetoric has turned heated: after militant attacks on India in 2016–19, some Indian leaders spoke of abrogating the IWT – even claiming “blood and water cannot flow together”. Pakistan’s media has accused India of “water terrorism” over every new Indian dam or barrage (for example the Shahpurkandi project on the Ravi).

In short, the Indus treaty – once an exemplar of cooperation – is being pulled apart by politics and geopolitics. Both sides acknowledge the IWT has no exit clause and that any change must be by mutual consent. But in the current climate, domestic pressures make that unlikely. “Climate security concerns will intensify in both countries,” notes Michael Kugelman of the Wilson Center, “and the stakes of ensuring the IWT will work will go up”. In other words, the more severe floods and droughts become, the more urgent it is to keep the treaty alive – yet the harder that seems as mistrust deepens.

Melting Glaciers and Vanishing Water

Beyond politics, climate change itself is already reshaping the Indus basin’s water flows. Roughly 25–30% of the Indus’s flow comes from snow and glacier melt, mostly from the Himalayas. As global temperatures rise, that source is under siege. In Pakistan alone, UNDP reports that of some 13,000 mountain glaciers, an estimated 10,000 are now receding rapidly. Initially this “extra” meltwater can boost flow, but experts warn the honeymoon is ending: as the ice vanishes, long-term water availability will shrink dramatically. Projections suggest the basin could face up to a 50% water deficit by 2030 if warming continues. This makes river flows more erratic: higher peak flows early in summer followed by stinging shortages by late season.

The consequences are already dire. Accelerated melting has spawned over 3,000 glacial lakes in Pakistan’s north, at least 33 of which scientists deem extremely prone to bursting. These glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs) can send wallops of water and debris downstream without warning. In 2022, monsoon rains and GLOFs combined to flood one-third of Pakistan. According to the World Bank and UNDP, 33 million Pakistanis were affected and some 1,730 lost their lives; economic damages topped $30 billion. Restoration and “build-back-better” efforts alone will cost many billions more. (Climate modelers note that a similar large deluge in Kashmir or the Punjab could cause comparable havoc on the Indian side.) In a nutshell, the melting cryosphere is making both countries more flood-prone and drought-prone – a double climate whammy.

Pakistan is not alone in water stress. India’s northern states (Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, etc.) already compete fiercely over the Indus’s eastern tributaries and groundwater. Stimson Center analysts point out that Punjab and neighboring states in India use almost all the water legally available to them, yet remain “water-stressed” thanks to aquifer overuse and poor water management. Both countries face early snowmelt, less winter recharge, and shifting monsoon patterns. As one recent study warned, unchecked climate change could turn the Indus basin into a far more volatile water system, intensifying flood and drought cycles across the region.

Defence vs. Development: Budgets and Priorities

Amid these environmental challenges, India and Pakistan still devote the lion’s share of public funds to defense. In raw numbers, India far outspends Pakistan – but both spend heavily relative to climate needs. In 2024 India’s military budget was about $86.1 billion (making it the world’s fifth-largest spender) versus $10.2 billion for Pakistan. The 2025–26 budgets stick to that pattern: India has allocated roughly ₹6.81 trillion ($79 billion) to defense, while Pakistan’s coalition government raised its defence outlay over 18% to about Rs2.5 trillion ($12 billion). In Pakistan this accounts for roughly 3–4% of GDP – one of the highest defense burdens in the world – while India’s military share hovers around 2% of GDP.

By comparison, climate adaptation programmes get scant funds. For example, the IMF has urged Pakistan to devote 1% of GDP (about Rs1.24 trillion, ~$4–5 billion) every year to climate resilience (flood defenses, drought-proofing, etc.). That is just a fraction of Pakistan’s defense spending. And in India, climate-related spending is dwarfed by other budget items: analysts note that while adapting to warming will require hundreds of billions of rupees, the recent Indian budgets allocate only small amounts to environmental adaptation or disaster mitigation. Critics say this is shortsighted, given recent disasters.

The imbalance has practical consequences. Billions more go into weapons that cannot stop a flood or heatwave. To put it in perspective, the $30+ billion cost of Pakistan’s 2022 floods

alone exceeded its entire defence budget, yet preparing for future floods struggles for funding. India, too, grapples with expensive climate damages (glacial lake floods in Himachal, for example). One commentator summed it up: states in the subcontinent prioritize tanks and jets, while the climate clock is ticking – a “trillion-dollar dilemma” of war budgets vs climate funds that experts worldwide have lamented.

Shared Skies and Shared Suffering

Despite the conflict, many environmental problems do not stop at the Line of Control. Winters in Lahore and Delhi often bring the same oppressive smog. A recent Global Shapers analysis noted that “Lahore and Delhi are notorious for having a high air quality index (AQI) during the winters,” thanks to crop-burning, vehicles and industry on both sides. The prevailing winds carry pollutants across borders, making clean-air action a region-wide necessity. Yet official responses remain largely national and disjointed. India has long implemented a Graded Response Action Plan in Delhi, banning diesel generators and vehicular traffic on bad days. Pakistan, similarly, convenes multi-agency “smog war rooms” to issue health alerts. But as one analysis bluntly observed, both efforts have been “too little, too late” given the scale of the problem.

On the political side, a few voices have urged cooperation. In October 2024, Punjab’s Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif explicitly called for “climate diplomacy” with India on smog abatement. She noted that air pollution can cut South Asians’ life expectancy by more than five years. – a human toll that dwarfs the death count at the border. At an expert roundtable, Pakistani lawyer Rafay Alam put it plainly: “More people die because of air pollution in India and Pakistan than on the border, and that should be cause enough” to work together on clean air. Such comments highlight the shared human cost of pollution.

Heat and water disasters are also common enemies. In April 2025, Pakistan endured one of its worst heat spikes on record: meteorologists warned central regions could hit ~50°C (120°F), challenging global monthly heat records. Delhi too suffered unusual April heat, reaching 40°C on multiple days. Climate analysts note that such extremes are already “testing human limits”, especially for vulnerable groups (pregnant women, the elderly, outdoor laborers). Meanwhile, both countries face ever-more-violent monsoons. Pakistan’s 2022 floods are the starkest example, but India’s flood disasters – from Assam to Himachal – have also intensified in recent years, killing thousands. Like smog, these floods pay no heed to geopolitics: 30 million Pakistanis and countless Indians alike live downstream of the melting icecap.

An urgent example came in mid-2023. Cyclone Biparjoy, a powerful tropical storm, slammed into both Indian and Pakistani coasts in June. Each country’s disaster agencies evacuated communities and mobilized relief supplies, but they did so independently. Analysts later criticized this as a “missed opportunity”: had the two governments coordinated warnings, evacuations or shared resources, many lives might have been spared. Instead, the response underscored the larger reality: climate and extreme weather events affect the entire region, yet rivalries keep responses fragmented.

Missed Opportunities – and a Road Ahead

In theory, climate cooperation could also ease diplomatic tensions. Observers point out that India and Pakistan already share technical forums (like the Permanent Indus Commission) and could create parallel ones for climate and disaster management. Back in 2010, environmentalists from both sides convened dialogues under the Heinrich Böll Foundation. Indian expert Surya Sethi stressed that “India and Pakistan share the same environmental zones, the same water, the same climate, and, therefore, need to address the challenges by climate change together”. Nearly 15 years later, that insight has lost none of its truth – but it has yet to translate into policy.

Practically speaking, experts and advocates offer concrete ideas. For example, India’s no-burn farming technologies (like the “Happy Seeder” for sowing without stubble burning) could be transferred to Pakistani farmers. Both countries could establish joint air-quality monitoring in the border region or share satellite data on forest fires and crop fires. They could use international forums (G77, UN climate talks) to jointly seek funding for South Asian climate adaption – rather than each pleading alone. On floods and droughts, even basic data-sharing (river flows at upstream dams, glacial lake warnings) could help downstream communities prepare.

None of these steps requires giving up national sovereignty – only setting aside paranoia for practical action. Pakistan’s climate experts have urged each other to see climate change as a security emergency in itself, suggesting that cooperation is actually in each country’s strategic interest. Likewise, Indian analysts note that water scarcity already contributes to domestic unrest and could spark regional instability if ignored. As Michael Kugelman and others argue, strengthening the Indus treaty and related bodies in tandem with climate adaptation would serve both countries’ security.

The bottom line is stark: without cooperation, the climate crisis will punch both nations harder, undermining food supplies, fueling migration, and raising humanitarian costs. But with bold diplomacy and joint planning, even bitter rivals could find common ground. As one Pakistani scientist put it bluntly: more people die from bad air than bullets. In the face of that reality, India and Pakistan may finally recognize that climate change is a far greater enemy than each other.