- Environmentalists say the climate crisis could become a rare opportunity to bridge regional divides
- Shared geography makes coordination unavoidable, say experts
KARACHI, Pakistan
Climate experts across Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh are urging a renewal of regional cooperation to confront escalating climate threats in South Asia – one of the world’s most vulnerable regions – warning that without collective action, extreme heat and severe flooding could soon overwhelm hundreds of millions of lives.
A new World Bank study released this week paints an alarming picture: by 2030, nearly 90% of South Asia’s population will be exposed to extreme heat, while almost one in four people will face severe flooding driven by climate-induced disasters.
The report says the region’s dense population, rising temperatures and exposed geography leave it acutely at risk.
“These findings demand adaptation mechanisms to foster climate resilience,” said Imran Saqib Khalid, a climate governance expert based in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
He argued that the crisis could become a rare opportunity to bridge regional divides. “Climate can indeed be a unifying factor in an era when there is plenty of antagonism to go around.”
Khalid highlighted the lack of a unified early warning infrastructure.
“India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, for example, are affected by monsoons. Having an early warning system that cuts across political boundaries and speaks to our individual vulnerabilities could be very, very helpful,” he told Anadolu.
Echoing his view, Shafi Mohammad Tareq, a professor of environmental science at Jahangirnagar University in Dhaka, warned that soaring temperatures and climate shocks pose major threats to human health and environmental security across the region.
“Climate change is a global issue, so isolated action will hardly work. We can address it through regional cooperation in mitigation and adaptation,” he said.
With most of Bangladesh’s rivers originating in India – and similar interdependencies between India and Pakistan – he said the region’s shared geography makes coordination unavoidable.
- Cooperation vs. geopolitics
According to the World Bank report, an average of “about 67 million people per year have been affected by natural disasters in South Asia since 2010, more than in any other region in the world.”
It cites flooding as “a particularly common weather-related hazard in the region, with 40% of land area having been flooded during 2000-18.”
The report warns that “extreme rainfall and flooding are expected to become more frequent and intense with rising global temperatures, with 22% (462 million) of the population projected to face floods exceeding 15 centimeters depth by 2030.”
Despite shared risks, experts acknowledge that strained ties between South Asian nations remain the biggest barrier.
Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, a policy expert in Pakistan, said South Asia lacks technical coordination even as it faces recurring heatwaves, increasingly destructive floods, prolonged droughts, tropical cyclones and glacial lake outburst floods.
He noted that the current atmosphere – including recent political tensions in Bangladesh and the flare-up between Pakistan and India in May – hinders official collaboration. Still, he insisted that climate cooperation remains possible in limited but critical areas.
“Even if the political atmosphere is not favorable, cooperation can still be ensured through ring-fencing or international collaboration,” he said. “The three countries must understand that their climate-related challenges are the same, and they are equally vulnerable.”
Sheikh pointed to shared monsoon impacts as an example: “Monsoon originates from the Bay of Bengal but it hits across Pakistan and India, causing an equal amount of devastation.”
Bangladesh and India’s coastal states – particularly West Bengal and Odisha – face a constant threat of cyclones and storm surges, he added, disasters that deepen poverty and food insecurity on both sides of the border.
Endorsing his view, Tareq emphasized that the region’s complex geopolitics remain tightly tied to environmental issues, making cooperation difficult, yet more essential than ever.
- Regional institutions and climate financing
Indian environmentalist Gufran Beig said platforms like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) could – in theory – provide a foundation for coordinated climate response, but have been largely sidelined by political rifts.
“Climate change does have the attention of these organizations, but there needs to be a more effective and collaborative approach to mitigate the challenges ahead,” Beig told Anadolu.
He noted that even distant events can worsen air pollution across South Asia, as seen with the recent volcanic eruption in Ethiopia that sent ash sweeping over the Red Sea through Oman and Yemen before reaching India’s capital New Delhi.
With pollution levels rising across major cities like Lahore, New Delhi, Dhaka and Karachi, he argued that coordinated monitoring and control systems are urgently needed.
Khalid suggested that climate finance could help revive stalled regional mechanisms like SAARC, positioning cooperation as a source of shared economic benefit.
“Climate financing could be key, whereby countries can come together and submit joint proposals to the Green Climate Fund or the Adaptation Fund,” he said. “That has not happened, but it is conceivable.”
He stressed that resilience depends on protecting vulnerable communities and small-scale economies. “How can we support poor households, smaller firms or business interests, small farmers? We can learn from each other when it comes to dealing with floods, drought, air pollution and other environmental issues,” he added.
People-to-people exchanges, including between farmers and youth, could also build trust and widen shared knowledge. “This is something that we did back in the 1960s during the Green Revolution, learning from one another’s experiences across borders,” Khalid noted.
* Najmus Sakib in Dhaka contributed to this report
