Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Climate Change Senator Sherry Rehman has called for a fundamental rethink of climate priorities, energy security and the growing intersection of climate change, artificial intelligence (AI) and geopolitical instability. Speaking as the chief guest at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) event on "Strengthening Climate Action" on November 2, Senator Rehman said the world was entering an age of unprecedented disruption, requiring countries to move beyond fragmented responses and rethink their approaches to development, technology and resource security.
Referring to the UNEP Emissions Gap Report, Senator Rehman said its findings should serve as a wake-up call. Under current policies, the world is heading towards approximately 2.8°C of warming by 2100, while full implementation of existing national climate pledges would still result in around 2.6°C of warming.
She said Pakistan was already experiencing the consequences of this widening ambition gap, remaining trapped in a recurring cycle of disasters and recovery, with progressively less time to rebuild. Recalling the 2022 floods, she said the country's cumulative climate-related losses over the past three decades were estimated at US$59 billion, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.
"Climate justice cannot mean asking vulnerable countries to find their own solutions while the global economic system continues to reward high emissions. Fossil-fuel subsidies were estimated by the IMF at approximately US$7 trillion.
We are paying for a crisis we contributed very little to creating. As global wealth grows, so does the number of people who are poor, hungry, land-deprived and water-deprived," she stated.
Describing the present period as an axial age of transformation, Senator Rehman said AI was fundamentally changing how humanity functions, consumes resources and exercises power. She cautioned that AI was not simply a digital tool but depended on enormous physical infrastructure with significant environmental implications.
"AI requires electricity, water, land and raw materials. We talk about its convenience, but we do not adequately understand the resources being consumed to sustain it.
We still lack sufficient transparency about the water and energy demands of data centres and supercomputing," she added. Citing International Energy Agency estimates, she said AI-related emissions were estimated at 33-80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, while individual large data centres could consume approximately 19 million litres of water daily for cooling.
Senator Rehman said reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels was essential to Pakistan's economic independence and energy sovereignty. In about five years, Pakistan had imported more than 50 gigawatts of solar panels worth nearly US$18 billion.
The transition had saved over US$12 billion in fuel imports since 2018, including US$6.3 billion in 2025. She said the next priority was a "storage and battery revolution".
She called for modernising the ageing electricity grid, expanding distributed energy and battery storage, and accelerating electric mobility through charging infrastructure and support for electric two- and three-wheelers, warning of growing global resource scarcity.