The Himalayas feed seven of Asia’s largest rivers and contain the largest store of freshwater outside the polar ice caps, resources on which the livelihoods of more than 1.3 billion people depend. But climate change is causing many Himalayan glaciers to retreat at a rapid pace, which could contribute to water shortages and have a major impact on freshwater flows. These changes would have a devastating impact on regional food security, the availability of energy resources and biodiversity.
Known as the “roof of the world”, the Himalayas face numerous challenges in addition to climate change. As mountain glaciers melt, wildlife poachers are running rampant, and forests are being cut down for timber or agriculture expansion. As many communities depend on the region’s natural resources to maintain their livelihoods and traditions, conservation is an important part of their lives.
- In the face of Climate Change, there is urgent need for Himalayan nations to build resilience to buffer the impacts of Climate Change and generate resources for adaptation, capacity building, and technology transfer. Such actions can no longer wait for a global agreement. In the Himalayas where the impacts of global climate are manifesting at a rapid pace, the time for action is running out. Recognizing this, the Governments of Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and India have agreed to convene the Bhutan 2011 Climate Summit to:
Adopt and endorse a 10-year road map for adaptation to climate change in the Eastern Himalaya’s sub-region for ensuring food, water and energy security while maintaining biodiversity and eco-system services. - Secure pledges from partner countries, institutions and individuals to fund and collaborate in the implementation of the road map.
- Create and operationalize regional expert groups to advice Governments in implementing the road maps and addressing emerging challenges.
Four key themes will be addressed during the Summit:
- Ensuring food security and livelihoods.
- Securing the natural fresh water systems of the Himalayas.
- Securing biodiversity and ensuring its sustainable use.
- Ensuring energy security and enhancing alternative technologies.
Bhutan will be host to the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas on 19 November 2011. The Climate Summit which will focus on southern slopes of the eastern Himalayas (includes Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal) is being organized to create awareness and raise the concerns of the mountainous countries on melting glaciers and glacial lake outburst floods which has not received the same level of success as the concerns of island nations and coastal regions on rising sea levels and melting polar ice caps. Consequently, mountain regions, like the Himalayas, run the risk of being left out of the climate change discourse and limit their access to mechanisms and resources for implementing mitigation and adaptation measures.
The Summit aims to develop and agree on a road map for adapting climate change in the Himalayas, particularly across the southern face of the Eastern Himalayas; highlight the issues of climate change and its impacts on the Himalayas; foster partnership and networking to facilitate sharing of information and experience; and to lobby for bringing attention to the impacts of climate change on the world mountains.
The UNDP is partnering with WWF, the MacArthur Foundation, ICIMOD, FAO and IFAD in the organization of the Summit.
A series of meetings have been held in advance of the November 2011 Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas to examine how the four nations can ensure water, food and energy security while maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services throughout the region.
Water Security Meet in Dhaka
A two-day consultative meeting of the regional water experts was held at Dhaka on July 2 to develop a roadmap for ensuring water security in eastern Himalayan region. Experts from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Bhutan took part in the meeting to adopt a roadmap for water security in the eastern Himalayan region. The outcome of the consultative meeting will feed to the Bhutan Climate Summit 2011 to be held in Thimpu in November this year.
While inaugurating the meeting, Bangladesh’s Minister for Environment and Forests Dr Hasan Mahmud stressed the need for stronger collective action for ensuring regional water security guided by the principles of equity, fairness and internationally agreed climate adaptation policies. He further added that eastern Himalayan region enjoys a similar hydro-metrological pattern influenced by monsoon and shares fresh water flows originated from Himalayas. But, according to the IPCC reports, annual runoff in the Brahmaputra River is projected to decline by 14 percent and the Indus by 27 percent by the end of the century with the implications of Himalayan glacier melting.
Urging for collective action to protect the unique ecosystem of Himalayas, Dr Hasan said: “This situation will be causing wide-ranging environmental, social and economic implications in South Asia and food security, health, livelihood; access to basis services, energy, shelter could be affected by the changes.”
Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, Convener of the Water Security Group, in his keynote paper said river basin management should be the basic starting point of regional cooperation for water security. He said, cooperation should be on irrigation for food production, fisheries, electricity production, flood management, water quality improvement, biodiversity conservation, river management to cope with environmental degradation and climate change impacts and cross boundary river tourism. Emphasizing on a political commitment for building cooperation in the eastern Himalayan or Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) regional countries, he said, sharing of water and climate related all data, generation of hydropower with equitable participation of all countries at appropriate places and establishment of GBM regional power grid could be incorporated in the roadmap for joint regional cooperation.
Dr Madhav Karki, Deputy Director of International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) said eastern Himalayan countries should promote Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the river basins as the appropriate process for planning and development of water resources. He said, learning from other regions, we feel that IWRM needs to extend to the entire river basis as one integrated unit in order to achieve optimal operation policies in adaptation and resilience building.
Food Security Meet in New Delhi
The two-day expert group meeting on “Building Climate Resilience for Food Security and Rural Livelihoods” was held in New Delhi on 26-27 July 2011, as part of the build-up to the Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas – Bhutan 2011. It was jointly organized by the environment and forests ministry and the Indian Council of Agricultural Research of the agriculture ministry of the government of India.
Scientists and experts from the four countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal agreed on strategies and action plans to build resilience to climate change in relation to food security in the region. In order to ensure adaptive approach to improve and sustain food production in the region they agreed to establish mechanisms for sharing relevant material related to genetic resources and breeding materials for research and development in the area of germplasm for plant, animals, fish, and microbes.
To exchange information on trans-boundary pest and diseases, the experts decided to promote mechanisms to strengthen food standards and safety measures, share and establish models for implementing sustainable community nutrition programmes, and devise mechanism for transfer and sharing of post harvest technologies.
They also stressed on the establishment of regional mechanism for information generation, knowledge sharing, and capacity building. This, they said, must lead to the exchange of researchers and scientists, students, food and agriculture officials, and farming communities in the region. They said the four countries must come together to share best management practices for improving input use efficiency, increasing irrigation efficiency, and extension services.
The two-day meeting at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research also decided to promote, document, and strengthen indigenous knowledge and practices in agriculture and institutionalize sharing of weather and climate related information and agro-meteorology. The delegates of the four countries agreed to create a suitable institution to facilitate implementation of joint programs. They agreed to establish and strengthen networking amongst regional nodal centers including development of protocols to facilitate exchange of genetic resources.
The participants agreed that a clear policy on food security and climate change must be introduced and implemented in the region. They said that despite the rich biodiversity and diverse traditional communities, the four countries remain extremely vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because of the fragile ecology of the region.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. However, the major threats to food security in the region include increasing population, increasing development activities, declining arable lands, and degradation of natural resources.
The deputy director general of Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Dr. A.K. Singh, said the Eastern Himalayan region will be most affected by climate change because of its extremely fragile ecosystem. Moreover, the region also has some of the most vulnerable communities in the world. He further added: “Therefore, the four countries must create platforms to share technologies to save the fragile agro-ecology of the region. We need to share expertise and indigenous knowledge if we are to alleviate the huge percentage of our people living in poverty.”
The leader of the Bhutanese delegation, Director Chencho Norbu of the agriculture department, said Bhutan presently has weak meteorological data and the country would immensely benefit if it had access to weather and climatic data from India. He said: “We will also benefit from access to genetic resources and stress tolerant varieties. The experience from the North East India is very relevant to Bhutan. That’s why we must develop networks with scientists and researchers in the region.”
The leader of the Indian delegation, Dr. S.V. Ngachan, said conserving and sustaining biodiversity is crucial for food security not just for humans but also for animals. He further stated that countries like Bhutan and Nepal could hugely benefit from the North East India experience. For example, of the 40,000 rice germ plasm in India about 10,000 are in the North East region alone.
The leader of the Nepalese delegation, Uddhav Prasad Baskota, while emphasizing that the region’s food security has been threatened by changing weather conditions and climate-induced natural disasters, further said: “We consider this expert meeting on food security as a timely initiative to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change. We therefore strongly support the idea of promoting regional cooperation in food security.”
Energy Security Meet in Kathmandu
A two-day meeting titled ‘Ensuring Energy Security and Enhancing Alternate Technologies’, was held on 28 and 29 July 2011 in Kathmandu, which was attended by experts from the four countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal was held at Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. The experts agreed to assess the requirement for the development of regional power transmission grid as well as to explore opportunities and impact of regional connectivity for electricity and natural gas.
They decided to enhance access to affordable and reliable ‘energy services for all’ through cleaner energy resources and technologies. And to do so, they said mechanisms must be created to share information and build institutional capacity.
Diversification in the supply and use of cleaner energy was adopted as another strategy to ensure energy security in the Eastern Himalayan countries. They emphasized on developing climate resilient hydropower focusing mainly on storage type and said the use of renewable energy resources and technologies must be increased. They said the four governments must promote the exploration and development of natural gas for diversification of energy mix. And to enhance energy efficiency in the region they decided to foster collaboration to develop institutions to promote efficient use of energy and standards to promote efficient use of energy. They laid emphasis on building regional human resource capacity for energy efficiency improvement.
A major decision was perhaps the agreement to mainstream climate resilience in energy systems. To do so, the experts recommended the establishment of regional networks to share climate information, establish an Eastern Himalayan institution on climate change and energy, establish mechanisms to conduct research on impact of climate change on energy system and energy demand, and promote incorporation of climate change adaptation strategies in energy planning.
The two-day meeting agreed that the regional faced similar challenges in the area of energy and must come together to embrace similar solutions. They said that although the region abounds in energy resources, the energy deficit continues to remain huge. Therefore, sustaining energy demands of the people in the region is a huge challenge.
The leader of the Indian delegation and director of Electricity Authority of India, Ramesh Kumar, said the region’s concerns with respect to hydropower development are similar, and the action plan must identify ways to cope with the impacts of climate change. However, on the idea of building a common regional grid for the four countries, he said the need for such a mechanism must be first properly assessed, “We need to assess how much power the countries can afford to deliver, otherwise the grid will not be helpful.”
The delegation from Bangladesh said the country has a huge energy deficit at the moment and ways to import power from Bhutan and Nepal must be explored. Bangladesh requires 5,000 MW of energy a day, according to the leader of the Bangladeshi delegation, Anwar Hossain Khan. He said their primary interest would also be finding ways to connect the region with a natural gas pipeline.
Addressing the gathering, the leader of the Nepalese delegation, Batu Krishna Uprety, said the Climate Summit is an opportunity for the four countries to work together, and present a common stand on climate change in the international forums. He also said: “Generally, mountain countries haven’t received enough attention in the international arena, and the Summit must result in a common basis for us to make our case.”
The meeting is the last of the four expert group meetings. The meeting, , and is part of the preparatory process leading to the ‘Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas – Bhutan 2011’ which will be convened in Bhutan on 19 November 2011.
The results of these expert group meetings on water, food, and energy will now be deliberated during the policy level consolidation meeting to be held in Thimphu, capital of Bhutan, on 19 November 2011.
