Climate Change Threatens Himalayas

The Himalayas are the source of water for some 20 percent of the world's population, some 1.3 billion people. This is the first time that Himalayan governments have come together to call for strict emission reduction targets at the Copenhagen summit next December. This conference will try to seal a new international climate change agreement.

"Basically Nepal mountains are the water source for billions of people," says Purushottam Ghimire, a high-ranking official with the environment ministry of Nepal. "So at this conference we want to discuss about the gravity of this problem not only for Nepal, but also for our neighbouring countries."

The "third pole" is melting

Environmental campaigners refer to the Himalayas as the "third pole", because of its large ice cover. They believe the melting glaciers are the biggest potential contributors to rising sea levels after the North and the South poles.

As Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain, from The Energy and Resources Institute TERI in India, explains, "not only snow, but the glaciers are also affected by non carbon dioxide radiative forcing agents like black carbon and troposphere ozone. Both enhance the temperature in the Himalayas, so the entire third pole region is already affected."

Changing monsoon rains

The melting of snow also changes weather patterns in South Asia, experts say. Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain explains: "The green house gasses and the additional warming by black carbon and tropospheric ozone are also causing the shifting of the monsoon and similarly the westerlies. So that is badly affecting agricultural production. So when people put up paddies, in July they have already wilted."

This year, too, late and scarce monsoon rains have caused a drought in large parts of India. In a recent report on Nepal, the aid agency Oxfam said climate change already had severely affected agriculture there.

Glacier lakes might burst

Besides, experts believe the melting glaciers in Nepal, Bhutan and Pakistan have formed vast lakes which threaten to burst, adding worries downstream. Professor Syed Iqbal Hasnain points out the necessary requisites.

"All these countries of South Asia have to come together and agree on some kind of a research plan into the region which we are calling the third pole, with a huge population and people being marginalized in certain countries. It is an onus on all the governments of the South Asian countries to solve the problem."

Experts urge that it is high time to overcome all border conflicts in the Himalayas and take the issue of climate change more seriously, otherwise large parts of Asia will soon face a severe water crisis and possibly unrest as people scramble to secure their water supplies.

Author: Debarati Mukherjee
Editor: Grahame Lucas