An Assessment of the Effectiveness of the Climate Change Initiatives of the PTI Government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (2013–2023)

Abstract

The current paper evaluates the efficacy of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan in its climate change efforts made during the period of 2013-2023. It is highly concerned with its effectiveness over how it describes the policy environment: it is not the question of what the government did, but the question of whether the government did the right thing. The case-study design used in the study is qualitative based on the use of nine purposely chosen key-informants the judgements of which are triangulated with policy documents, departmental survey data and peer-reviewed literature across seven thematic areas: the Billion Tree Tsunami, provincial climate policy, waste management, industrial compliance, traffic and air quality, green energy, and structural weaknesses. The results indicate that there is a high disparity of efficiency. The only program sustainable intervention that was proven to be effective and yielded measurable outcomes in the form of increased employment, forest cover, and flood resilience was the Billion Tree Tsunami, in contrast to programs that relied on technology and multi-agency cooperation such as waste-to-energy conversion, industrial compliance on a sector-wide level, and air-quality management, producing no significant outcomes. The research finds that the most finalizing climate results were obtained in areas where one and effectively resourced flagship work could be executed in a direct way, and the poorest results when success could be attained through ongoing coordination and technical capability.

Keywords: effectiveness; climate change initiatives; Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; PTI government; Billion Tree Tsunami; climate governance, and Pakistan.