“An Unequal Future: Asia’s Battle for Life and Power”, Oxfam’s recent release reveals an entire continent in the grip of unprecedented inequality — with Pakistan at its epicentre.

The economic and political model of the country, and therefore also its response to climate change, is constructed in such a way as to make a few spectacularly rich at the top while keeping the rest in poverty, informal work and dependence.

The wealthiest 10% of South Asians own approximately 77% of income and wealth, whereas the bottom half live on a meagre amount of 12–15%. This is the Pakistan of today, in which the old-established nobility has been replaced by political dynasties, an army combine and corporate barons.

More than 80% of the workforce works in what is known as the informal economy — without contracts, without protection. The poor are massively taxed by inflation through skyrocketing prices of food and fuel, but the rich have immunity, concessions and an untouchable agricultural tax shield. The tax-to-GDP ratio is under 10%, among the lowest in Asia, and inequality is built into the system.

The hidden constitution of Pakistan is its foreign debt. By 2022, debt owed to Asian developing nations reached an estimated $443 billion, of which Pakistan’s share has led to brutal cuts in health, education, and social protection. More than 42% of Pakistanis today fall below the poverty line, and every IMF-imposed “reform” plunges millions more into suffering.

Debt servicing outstrips what is spent on schools and hospitals, mortgaging the future of the nation to creditors and local elites. Austerity, in reality, is a war against the poor.

The climate crisis is amplifying this injustice. The floods of 1998 and this year submerged the lives of 33 million Pakistanis, but assistance afterwards largely materialised in the form of fresh loans. According to Oxfam, low-income countries such as Pakistan currently spend about twice their entire allocation for climate finance on debt service. The wealthy pollute and the destitute drown.

The richest 1% of people in South Asia produce 17 times more carbon than the poorest half. In Pakistan’s fortified suburbs, energy-guzzling mansions and fleets of SUVs are the symbols of climate apartheid: Those most responsible for global warming pay more to get away scot-free; farmers lose their land while women walk farther for water; families in mountain villages liquefy as glaciers melt into rivers now too wet or too dry.

Inequality also extends to technology. In Asia, 83% of people living in urban areas are online; the figure is 49% for those residing in rural settings and Pakistan does worse. The internet is still available only in cities and select privileged schools, while slow speeds and high data prices continue to exclude millions.

The 2023 internet blackout alone cost $17 million, ruining livelihoods for freelancers and small traders. For the poor, disconnection is exclusion from education, jobs and even state welfare systems, now digitised but inaccessible.

Women are also the heaviest “price” that this order has been able to exploit.

They do as much as four times more unpaid care work than men and are 41% less likely to use mobile internet. Oxfam calculates that full female participation in the labour force could boost Asia’s gross domestic product by $4.5 trillion a year, yet patriarchy in Pakistan keeps women landless, voiceless and disposable. When the pain of an economic or climate shock needs absorbing, it is women — particularly in Sindh and Balochistan — who take up that burden.

The report warns that rising inequality is undermining democracy throughout Asia. In Pakistan, plutocracy reigns. Billionaires are served by politicians, business empires are run by uniforms and spoils are brokered by bureaucrats. Every regime, whether civilian or military, defends the same class interests. “Stability” and “investment confidence” always refer to maintaining elite control while the working poor are deprived of welfare and rights.

Elections change faces, not fortunes. Surveillance spreads as civic space closes. Even education and access to the internet have become privileges —conditional on submission.

The way forward for Oxfam should be obvious: progressive taxation, universal health and education and social protection schemes for informal workers. A 60% tax on the top 1% and a 2–5% annual wealth tax could pay for needed services and climate adaptation. But Pakistan’s ruling class would not stand for redistribution that cuts into their privileges.

A skyline of luxury towers has sprouted alongside thirsty neighbourhoods, and hundreds of thousands of bonded peasants in Sindh still toil for landlords fluent now in the language of “green growth”. This is modern slavery.

Pakistan’s misfortune isn’t scarcity but theft. Its forests, rivers and workers provide for the state but don’t have a voice at the table. If privilege is not disrupted, and public systems are not rebuilt, the nation will continue to be an economy of masters in designer suits served by slaves in rags.

Yet hope endures. Valuing education, healthcare and connectivity as public rights could begin to reverse the downward spiral. Climate justice begins at home: Stop pollution for profit and direct resources toward those rebuilding from ruin. The question is simple but determining: will Pakistan continue as a citadel of privilege or become a republic of equals?

The writer is an expert on climate change and sustainable development and the founder of the Clifton Urban Forest. He posts @masoodlohar and can be reached at: [email protected]

Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.

Originally published in The News