Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Punjab

Balochistan

Sindh

Gilgit-Baltistan

Islamabad

Azad Jammu and Kashmir

Pakistan

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On February 7, 2023, the Supreme Court of Pakistan decided consolidated appeals concerning private title claims to land designated as protected forest in the former State of Swat. The Court held that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Forest Ordinance, 2002, barred the civil suits where the claimants could not establish title predating the forest notification. It allowed the government's appeals and dismissed the private parties' appeals.

In explaining the importance of forest protection, the Court treated climate change as a present crisis, reviewed Pakistan's forest loss and the carbon-sequestration function of trees, and stated that deforestation compounds the warming caused by fossil-fuel emissions. It relied on D.G. Khan Cement Co. v. Government of Punjab for climate democracy and intergenerational justice and connected forest stewardship with Islamic environmental principles. Although the immediate holding concerned title and jurisdiction, the climate-mitigation analysis formed a substantial part of the Court's rationale for protecting the forest.

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 October 21, 2022, the Supreme Court of Pakistan modified Sindh High Court orders that placed judicial officers in charge of citizens' committees overseeing relief after the 2022 floods. The Court held that judicial management of the committees crossed into executive functions under the National Disaster Management Act, 2010. It preserved a monitoring role for reconstituted committees, required representation of vulnerable groups and continued reporting by disaster-management authorities.

In an additional note expressly joined by the other members of the bench, Justice Syed Mansoor Ali Shah connected the floods to climate change, cited attribution research finding that five-day maximum rainfall over Sindh and Balochistan was 75% more intense in a world warmed by 1.2 degrees Celsius, and reviewed the scale of flood damage and reconstruction needs. The Court stated that protection of the rights to life and dignity requires a climate-resilient adaptation plan, including a mechanism for the use of loss-and-damage finance, and called for the implementation of Pakistan's climate-governance framework.

On October 10, 2019, the Lahore High Court considered a brick-kiln operator's challenge to police interference with the excavation and transport of soil. The Court declined to resolve the petitioner's fact-dependent individual claim but used the proceeding to address unregulated topsoil removal by the brick industry. It held that soil falls within the public trust doctrine because it supports plant growth, filters water, maintains atmospheric-gas balance, stores carbon, and sustains ecosystems. 

Relying in part on the IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land and Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan, the Court found that removal of topsoil contributes to desertification, lower agricultural yields, food insecurity, environmental degradation, and climate change. 

The Court directed the Government of Punjab to begin, within six months, administrative and legislative measures to regulate brick manufacturing and the use and conservation of soil, in consultation with affected agencies and industry stakeholders.

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