he World Environment Day has been celebrated annually since 1973 to commemorate environmental outreach and to serve as a global platform for inspiring positive change. Today, millions of individuals, organisations and governments from across the world, Pakistan included, join in collective environmental celebrations to commemorate this day.

What are we, the millions, celebrating?

The ‘celebration’ amounts to organising a special event because “…something pleasant has happened.” The crippling heatwave we are currently experiencing in most parts of Pakistan isn’t really indicative of anything pleasant. And yet, lush panelled conference rooms are being reserved at fancy hotels to commemorate the World Environment Day.

What are the millions celebrating?

Are we celebrating the fact that 2023 passed without a major fresh flooding even as many of the 1.2 million people displaced by the 2022 floods continue to struggle with rehabilitating their lives? Maybe there are plans to plant some more trees that were sacrificed to accommodate growing vehicular traffic? Could we be celebrating because Pakistan has climbed another spot—now ranked second—among the most polluted countries? Can we rejoice the violation of our fundamental rights to life, health and education as smog engulfs our existence during the winter months?

Maybe, it’s time to acknowledge that along with global weather patterns, our definition of ‘celebration’ has also changed.

The mutating etymology of ‘celebration’ deserves some thought in the context of the environment, not just because on the surface we have limited reasons for celebration, but also because why should environmental disasters detract from ‘celebrating’ the efforts we are making in combating environmental carnage.

Picking plastic waste from the beach will not prevent a glacial lake outburst flood, but it may very well help an entire ecosystem revive. Any environmental endeavour, small or grand, one undertakes, will inculcate in them a sense of agency, prompting them to believe that their next effort can have a hugely positive environmental impact. The vocabulary of environmental celebration then, should be synonymous with environmental hope.

Fostering hope helps us bear an environmental tragedy, without letting it wash away our aspirations for a better and safer tomorrow. At an everyday relatable level, hope for the environment is checking your phone’s weather app in the midst of a heatwave, several times a day, to see if the zero percent precipitation chances have altered in favour of a rain respite. Hope may also breed cautious optimism and anchor you to face an inevitable climate catastrophe. Because deep down we all know, that our air conditioners failing to cool effectively in a heatwave is not the extent of the climate turmoil we will be facing in this lifetime. It stands to reason then, that it’s illogical for an average man on the Clapham omnibus to not cling to environmental hope—it is, after all, the simplest antidote to the paralysis of climate despair.

Concluding then that celebrating the World Environment Day is akin to harbouring and spreading environmental hope, Pakistan should unabashedly celebrate its latest environmental victories. Economic Survey, 2022-2023, released by the Ministry of Finance, in the year 2023 alone, indicates that Pakistan has accomplished a series of environmental feats, including: (i) launching the National Clean Air Policy to improve air quality in the country; (ii) increasing the budget allocated for water, sanitation and hygiene services (WASH) in the provincial and federal budgets to Rs 265 billion; (iii) planting and distributing a cumulative total of 2,027.01 million plants under the Ten Billion Tree Tsunami by March 2023; (iv) spearheading the operationalisation of the Loss and Damage fund at COP 28 in Dubai, which amassed pledges amounting to $792 million and which will help developing countries fight the impacts of slow on set climate disasters; (v) releasing the much awaited National Adaptation Plan which will serve as a roadmap for adaptation efforts in the county on priority areas such as water resources, agriculture and livestock, forestry, health, gender, disaster preparedness, urban resilience and biodiversity and other ecosystems; and (vi) commencing implementation of the Living Indus Initiative through the Recharge Pakistan adaptation project whereby $78 million has been designated to restore the Indus Basin and fortify Pakistan’s resilience, primarily through nature based solutions.

I hope for a few moments there, it felt like Pakistan had accomplished something substantial last year in its fight against climate change. I hope this also allowed the hope that next year, around this time, there will be a longer list of the country’s environmental feats.

For a country constantly plagued by political chaos, economic upheaval and social unrest, climate change and the environment will continue to remain on the back burner, until a government acknowledges that climate permeates and influences every facet of this country’s survival. Till then, and in the given circumstances, all environmental victories, big and small, are worth celebrating.

In any case, Earth is not the only thing we have in common—our need for being hopeful is another. Even as we brace for new environmental challenges shrouded in the knowledge that we are unprepared, let us not forget to celebrate hope.

The writer is a climate change law and policy specialist