Is Lahore's urban system ready to sustain climate change? The case in Pakistan

Abstract

Lahore, the second largest city of Pakistan and home to more than 12 million people with annual population growth rate of 2.4%, has experienced deadly smog duration since last three years. Climate Change is a global challenge and administrations in major cities around the globe have started addressing the issue on top level. Lahore has also seen establishment and operation of various public sector institutions/offices which explicitly or implicitly claim to help Lahore sustain changing needs of urban system due to climate change. However, little is documented yet whether how effective have these interventions been at institutional level. This paper investigates policies, plans, procedures and regulations (whichever available) for seven relevant government offices on the basis of five key assessment areas to explore whether Lahore’s urban system is ready to sustain the challenge of Climate Change. The investigation covers the debate on policy to the plan level. Institutional abilities of selected government offices have been analyzed to ascertain their efficacy. In essence; the capacity of current system has been documented, the gaps in the system have been outlined and the prospective solutions for the way forward have been suggested in this study.