Climate change threatens the roof of the world

• Source: Global Times
• [22:16 August 30 2009]
• Comments

Editor's Note:

The Himalayan region is ecologically hypersensitive, yet a vital natural service provider. However, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the region is a white spot for data. In the absence of field studies and adequate data, the impact of global warming there is largely unknown. With no plan and action in place, can people across the Himalayan region mobilize to build a collaborative response to the impacts of climate change? The following is an interview by Isabel Hilton, editor of Chinadialogue (CD), with Mohan Munasinghe (Munasinghe), vice chairman of IPCC. The article is from www.chinadialogue.net.
 
CD: Himalayan glacier melt is predicted to impact food security, cause catastrophic events, cross-border conflict over water and forced migration, all in countries that are relatively poor and whose peoples are not best equipped to adapt. What can be done to prepare for the effects?

Munasinghe: The Himalayan issue is very underrated and not getting the attention it deserves. When one thinks of poor people who are being impacted by climate change, one thinks of Africa and so on, but I think South Asia, and particularly the watersheds that are fed from the Himalayas, are equally vulnerable. The global community, especially industrialized countries, has a major responsibility to help. This is an issue of social justice and equity and I think the industrialized countries should pay special attention to the Himalayan region in launching their adaptation programs.

CD: But this is a region fraught with political tensions. How is it possible to build cooperation under these circumstances?

Munasinghe: I have been involved in conflict management in many places, most of them on resource issues – land, water and so on. Almost invariably, if you sit down and analyze technically, you can come up with a cooperative solution in which everybody benefits, a win-win outcome, whereas a conflict or non-cooperative outcome usually destroys much of the resource.

But of course, in practical terms, trust is lacking, certainly at a government level and perhaps at individual level. I think the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is a bad example – it is one of the regional organizations that have lagged behind simply because of mistrust.

My approach would be very drastic: to start bilaterally. Two countries can work out, say, water sharing agreements on a purely pragmatic basis. They don't even have to like each other – just to see a mutual profit. Then you can expand that to sub-regional arrangements, involving perhaps three SAARC countries and eventually you would get the whole of the SAARC region, working together as Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) does.

If this pragmatic approach starts with the resources, trade and the economics, I am sure that eventually agreement could be reached on climate measures as well.