By: FARAZ AHMED CHANDIO
Climate liberalism conceptualises climate change as a global threat that can be addressed through market-based mechanisms, economic liberalism, and international political cooperation rather than coercive or strongly state-centred approaches. Instruments such as carbon markets, public–private partnerships, climate finance, and multilateral climate funds form the backbone of this paradigm. Because it aligns with existing global economic structures and avoids radical redistribution or binding enforcement, climate liberalism is often viewed as politically feasible and internationally acceptable. However, for developing countries—and particularly for Pakistan—this approach generates deep contradictions. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate change, carries minimal historical responsibility for emissions, and operates within a fragile economic context with limited capacity to absorb climate shocks. As a result, the climate liberalism framework risks intensifying rather than alleviating structural inequality.
The climate liberalism dilemma fundamentally stems from the tension between the global political economy and the material realities of the climate crisis. Liberal climate regimes assume that meaningful mitigation and adaptation can occur without challenging the dominant growth-oriented economic model. Yet this very model—built on industrialisation, fossil fuel dependence, and extractive resource use—is the principal driver of climate change. For countries in the Global South, the dilemma is particularly acute: they experience the most severe climate impacts while having benefited least from the economic processes that caused them. Climate liberalism thus attempts to manage a crisis produced by the global economic system without substantially reforming that system.
This dilemma manifests most clearly in the mismatch between responsibility and capability. Liberal climate governance prioritises voluntary commitments and nationally determined contributions, placing all states within a formally equal framework. However, this approach fails to reconcile the historical emissions of industrialised countries with the limited economic, institutional, and technological capacities of developing states. Pakistan contributes less than one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet it faces disproportionate exposure to climate risks. By avoiding binding obligations on historically high-emitting states, climate liberalism effectively shifts the burden of adaptation onto countries least equipped to bear it.
A second dimension of the dilemma lies in the tension between efficiency and equity. Market-based climate instruments are designed to achieve emissions reductions at the lowest possible cost, privileging efficiency over distributive justice. While such mechanisms may deliver aggregate mitigation outcomes, they tend to favour actors with capital, technological expertise, and institutional strength. In Pakistan, this logic risks marginalising rural communities, informal workers, and small-scale farmers who lack access to markets and finance. Climate action framed primarily through cost–benefit calculations overlooks social vulnerability and reinforces existing inequalities.
The third tension concerns global cooperation versus national sovereignty. Climate liberalism relies heavily on international cooperation and conditional climate finance. Although cooperation is essential for addressing a global problem, the conditions attached to climate finance often constrain domestic policy autonomy in developing countries. Pakistan frequently receives climate-related funding in the form of loans rather than grants, accompanied by requirements for policy reform, fiscal adjustment, or co-financing. This undermines the state’s capacity to design and implement climate strategies tailored to local needs and priorities.
Pakistan’s climate vulnerability highlights these contradictions with particular clarity. Despite its negligible contribution to global emissions, the country faces escalating risks from rising temperatures, erratic monsoon patterns, glacial melt, floods, droughts, and heatwaves. These impacts threaten agriculture, water security, public health, and critical infrastructure. The devastating floods of 2022, which displaced millions of people and caused multibillion-dollar economic losses, exposed the limitations of market-oriented climate responses. The absence of robust public adaptation systems, comprehensive social protection, and effective climate risk insurance demonstrated that market mechanisms alone are insufficient to manage large-scale climate disasters.
Within the development context, climate liberalism places Pakistan in a paradoxical position. To adapt to climate change, the country must rely on international climate finance that often increases public debt and reduces fiscal space for essential social spending. Climate adaptation and mitigation efforts therefore compete directly with investments in poverty alleviation, healthcare, and education. Rather than supporting sustainable development development, this dynamic risks undermining long-term social and economic resilience.
The same paradox appears in Pakistan’s energy transition. Liberal climate frameworks promote renewable energy expansion through private investment and market pricing. While Pakistan has made progress in solar and wind energy, market-driven reforms can increase energy costs for low-income households if not supported by strong public intervention. In a context of widespread energy poverty, decarbonisation strategies that neglect social equity risk deepening inequality and eroding public support for climate policy.
Climate liberalism also raises profound concerns from a climate justice perspective. The framework tends to treat individuals as consumers and market participants rather than as rights-bearing citizens entitled to protection from climate harm. In Pakistan, social vulnerability is shaped by intersecting factors such as class, gender, rural livelihoods, and informal employment. Small farmers, women, and urban informal workers experience disproportionate climate impacts yet remain largely excluded from climate finance, insurance schemes, and decision-making processes. Adaptation strategies driven by economic efficiency often prioritise commercially valuable or urban areas, leaving marginalised communities increasingly exposed.
At the international level, climate liberalism reflects existing global power asymmetries. Climate governance is shaped by the preferences of powerful states and financial institutions, while developing countries are expected to comply with global norms despite limited bargaining power. Pakistan’s repeated calls for loss and damage compensation, technology transfer, and unconditional grants illustrate the structural limitations of liberal climate governance. The persistent failure to deliver adequate support risks reinforcing dependency rather than enabling transformative resilience.
The climate liberalism dilemma thus reveals a fundamental limitation of contemporary climate governance. For highly vulnerable developing countries, market-based and growth-compatible solutions are not sufficient. In Pakistan’s case, climate liberalism offers finance and cooperation without adequately addressing historical responsibility, structural injustice, or deep social vulnerability. A more meaningful approach would prioritise climate justice and redistribution over narrow efficiency, shift from loan-based to grant-based climate finance, strengthen state-led adaptation efforts, and recognise climate resilience as integral to development and human rights. Without such a reorientation, climate liberalism will continue to stabilise the global economic order while leaving countries like Pakistan to bear the human costs of a crisis they played little role in creating.
