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Pakistan’s latest climate action plan, submitted to the UN ahead of COP30 in Brazil, was meant to signal resolve. Instead, it has raised uncomfortable questions. By placing Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) at the centre of its decarbonisation pathway under the Paris Agreement, Islamabad risks blurring the line between climate ambition and climate accounting.
In this third iteration, Pakistan has pledged to “phase down” coal and reduce projected emissions by 50% by 2035, conditional on international finance covering 33% of the effort. The price tag is a staggering $565.7 billion. That figure alone demands that every rupee and every policy lever be beyond reproach. Yet it is precisely here that the document falters. The government describes the plan as the product of a “participatory, open and transparent approach”. But civil society and academia were scarcely represented beyond a narrow circle. Climate policy, especially in a country as vulnerable as Pakistan, cannot be curated within echo chambers.
More troubling is the reliance on CCUS — an expensive and largely unproven technology — as a cornerstone of emissions reduction. While the country celebrates a moratorium on imported coal power plants, domestic coal continues to anchor energy planning. In effect, the state appears to be hedging its bets by preserving fossil fuel infrastructure while banking on future technology to neutralise its consequences. That wager is fraught with risk as internationally, the technology has struggled to deliver emissions reductions at scale without enormous subsidies.
For Pakistan, phasing down coal cannot mean perpetuating it under a technological disguise. A credible pathway would prioritise rapid expansion of renewables, grid modernisation, energy efficiency, and a time-bound retirement schedule for fossil fuel assets. It would also articulate clear domestic financing strategies instead of resting primarily on uncertain international flows.
