Gilgit-Baltistan

Punjab

Islamabad

Sindh

Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Balochistan

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Pakistan

To save up-to 3 MTOE in the primary energy supply by 2023, leading towards 6.4 MT CO2e emission reductions.

Increase in on-grid generation of Renewable Energy to 20% in 2025 and 30% in 2030.

Increase in the percentage investment in the water sector from 10% in 2018 to 20% by 2030

Double the share of renwable energy with a projected to increase of 655% by 2030, in comparison to share in 2016-17

Cut transmission and distribution losses to 16% (from undated baseline of 23-25%) by 2017

Increase forest cover from 4.8% to 6.0% by 2015 against a 1990 baseline

On March 31, 2017, Pakistan’s Climate Change Act was promulgated. The Act mandated the establishment of a Climate Change Authority and a Climate Fund, but neither has been established. As a result, in December 2022, the Public Interest Law Association of Pakistan (PILAP) filed a constitutional petition in the Supreme Court challenging the government’s failure to implement the 2017 Act. 

On May 11, 2024, following the federal government's inactionable efforts to begin establishing the fund and authority, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court ordered the federal government to establish the Climate Change Authority within 14 days, and to complete establishing the Climate Fund. 

On April 15, 2021, The Supreme Court of Pakistan upheld a Notification by the Provincial government of Punjab barring the construction of new cement plants or the expansion of existing cement plants in environmentally fragile zones called "Negative Areas." A cement company owner challenged the Notification on the grounds that it violated their constitutional right to freedom of trade, business, and profession under Article 18 of the Constitution, and that the government acted in undue haste by issuing the regulation without full consideration of scientific impacts. The Supreme Court rejected the challenges and upheld as proper the government's consideration, based on a consultant report, that new or expanded cement plans could cause further depletion of groundwater and other harmful environmental impacts. As part of its consideration, the Court emphasized the need to for the government to uphold the precautionary principle in protecting the rights to life, sustainability, and dignity of communities surrounding the project areas. In addition, the Court recognized the need to protect the right of nature itself, writing, "[m]an and his environment each need to compromise for the better of both and this peaceful co-existence requires that the law treats environmental objects as holders of legal rights."

The Court went on to emphasize the need for consideration of climate change in government decisions and the impact of climate change on water resources. The Court wrote, "[o]nly by devising and implementing appropriate adaptation measures will it be possible to ensure water, food and energy security for the country . . . The Notification, in the current facts of the case, is a climate resilient measure and in step with the National Climate Change Policy and the Constitution." 

Further, the Court emphasized the need to consider intergenerational justice in climate cases like this one: "This Court and the Courts around the globe have a role to play in reducing the effects of climate change for our generation and for the generations to come. Through our pen and jurisprudential fiat, we need to decolonize our future generations from the wrath of climate change, by upholding climate justice at all times."

A coalition of women filed a constitutional petition on their behalf and on behalf of future generations against the Federation of Pakistan. They allege that the federal government’s inaction on climate change violated their fundamental rights including the right to a clean and healthy environment and a climate capable of sustaining human life, (a right which was previously recognized in Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan 2018 CLD 424). They further argue that since climate change has a disproportionate impact on women, the government’s climate inaction violates plaintiffs’ rights to equal protection under the law and no discrimination on the basis of sex.  

Plaintiffs explain that the government specifically has failed to prioritize clean energy projects, even though solar and wind energy has become cheaper than conventional energy, and has not approved any clean energy projects between December 2017 and the filing of the suit. Plaintiffs argue this failure to abate greenhouse gas emissions violates the “clear mandate of the RE Policy 2006, the firm commitments made by the State of Pakistan pursuant to the Paris Agreement and the urgent threat of climate change. Plaintiffs further argue these violations amount to violations of constitutional rights. They state that the superior courts of Pakistan have held that “Fundamental Rights like the right to life and security of person under Articles 4 and 9 [of the constitution] include the right to a healthy and clean environment,” and have also “read” “the right to human dignity under Article 14” “with the constitutional principles of democracy, equality, social, economic and political justice” “including within their ambit the international environmental principles of sustainable development, precautionary principle, environmental impact assessment, inter and intra‑generational equity and public trust doctrine.”

Emissions reductions in the energy sector were critical, according to the petitioners, as the sector was responsible for 47% of Pakistan’s total emissions. In Pakistan’s 2016 NDC, the government committed to a 20% reduction of its 2030 projected GHG emissions. Despite this, petitioners maintained that respondents had neither prioritized clean energy projects nor approved a renewable energy project since December 2017. The petitioners alleged that this failure betrayed the government’s “stated commitment under the Paris Agreement to encourage and foster the development of renewable energy sources”. Khan et al. also argued that the respondents violated the public trust doctrine and principle of intergenerational equity, as well as the concept of climate justice developed in Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan. The petitioners sought orders declaring that the government must support renewable energy projects and enforce the Paris Agreement in letter and spirit. 

Members of civil society filed suit against Pakistan, (impleading several departments including the Planning and Development Department, Punjab Environmental Protection Department, and Housing & Urban Development Department), for failure to plant, protect, manage, preserve, and conserve the trees and forests in Punjab in violation of statutory obligations and petitioners’ constitutional rights. Petitioners requested a writ of mandamus under Article 199 of Pakistan’s Constitution and alleged the government’s conduct violated their fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 9 (right of life liberty), Article 14 (right of dignity), Article 26 (right of access to public places of entertainment) and Article 38(b) (provision of available leisure places) of the Constitution. Petitioners asked the court, inter alia, to appraise the government’s implementation of relevant policies to increase forest cover; to implement the Forest Act, 1927 (the “Forest Act”) and the Punjab Plantation and Maintenance of Trees Act, 1974 (the “Trees Act”) by planting trees; to present a timeline for implementation, and to initiate appropriate proceedings against officers who failed to discharge their duties.

The High Court of Lahore allowed the writ of mandamus, ordering the government to fulfill their obligations under the law “to safely manage, conserve, sustain, maintain, protect and grow forests and plant trees in urban cities.” The court summarized a variety of requirements under natural resource, development, local government, and international law to establish the government’s obligations to protect the forest including the “Forest Act” and “Trees Act.” It directed the government to take its legal obligations seriously in implementing related policies, including the National Climate Change Policy, 2012, the National Forest Policy, 2015, the Forest Policy Statement, 1999 and Punjab Environment Policy, 2015. It noted that if the government had properly fulfilled its legal obligations “in letter and spirit” “the forest of Pakistan could have been saved [from] further depletion and deforestation.” In its discussion of relevant law, the court touched on the right to a healthy environment, the precautionary principle, and the public trust doctrine. Specifically, in regard to climate change, the court summarized the negative impacts of climate change on forests and obligations under the National Climate Change Policy, 2012 to protect biodiversity and prevent wetland degradation by reducing deforestation.

At the time of the decision, the involved government bodies had already prepared an Urban Trees Plantation Policy under direction of the court resulting in “massive” plantings across the Punjab area. In addition to instructions to implement the laws, the court order included instructions to the government bodies to consider revising requirements and penalties under the Trees Act, publish annual reports on expansion of the forest area, impose penalties against delinquent officers, and to issue directions to the housing societies and authorities to support the planting of trees in the green belt and issue penalties for cutting those trees down.


Geography

Pakistan

Recent cases