CAC launches first-ever Climate Week
By Preet Tania
KARACHI: | January 2026 — Climate Week Karachi (CWK) 2026 will mark a historic milestone as Pakistan’s first-ever climate week to be organised by the Climate Action Centre Karachi (CAC). This was announced by the CAC leaders at a press conference held at Karachi Press Club. Yair Darya, Afaq Bhatti and other spoke on the occasion.
The event will remain continue from 29 January to 4 February 2026. CWK will unfold as a citywide climate movement, activating Karachi’s cultural, academic, civic, and public spaces through a unifying ecological and civilizational lens: the River Indus.
With a theme “Tides of Tomorrow: City, Memory, Future,” Climate Week Karachi places the Indus at the heart of urgent conversations about climate change, urban survival, energy transition, and climate justice. Stretching from the glaciers of the north to its fragile delta at the Arabian Sea, the Indus is not only Pakistan’s primary river system but a living archive of the region’s history, labour, culture, and ecological memory.
Karachi, located at the river’s deltaic edge, bears the cumulative consequences of upstream extraction, climate change, sea-level rise, salinity intrusion, and ecological collapse. Climate Week Karachi reframes the Indus not as an abstract water system, but as a living entity, a shared inheritance, and a barometer of environmental injustice. The city’s water crises, coastal erosion, heat stress, energy insecurity, and public health challenges are deeply entangled with the river’s fate.
Throughout the week, artists, climate activists, riverine and coastal communities, scientists, historians, policymakers, civil society organisations, students, and government institutions will come together to collectively reimagine Karachi’s climate future through the story of the Indus. By centring the river, CWK foregrounds interconnected ecologies of water, land, labour, memory, and survival, bridging scientific knowledge with cultural practice and lived experience.
A key focus of Climate Week Karachi 2026 is the city’s energy future. Dependence on fossil fuels has degraded air, water, and land while deepening social and economic inequalities in urban Pakistan. CWK brings energy justice to the forefront, highlighting the urgent transition from fossil-based systems toward green, clean, and renewable energy.
