After largely overlooking Tibet in its past reports, the United \nNations\u2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now raised\n the alarm on the state of the environment of the Tibetan plateau, \nwarning of serious sequences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing \nClimate was released on Sept. 25, 2019, just as world leaders met at the\n UN Climate Action Summit in New York. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The report says that even if carbon emissions are dramatically and \nrapidly cut and succeed in limiting global warming to 1.5 degree C, 36 \npercent of glaciers along the Hindu Kush and the Himalayan range will be\n gone by the year 2100. If emissions are not cut, the loss will increase\n to two-thirds.[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The dangers and impacts are compounded by China\u2019s policies in Tibet, \nwhich seal off the Tibetan Plateau from regional cooperation and exclude\n and marginalize Tibetans as stewards of their own fragile high-altitude\n ecosystem. Tibet, a historically independent country, has been brutally occupied by China for the past 60 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IPCC report, produced by 104 scientists from 36 countries over a \nthree-year period, makes it clear that effective adaptation efforts \ndepend on regional cooperation, reduced geographic barriers and the use\n of indigenous and local knowledge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the fragility of the high-altitude ecosystem and the stark \nthreats spelled out by the IPCC, China has intensified infrastructure \nconstruction across Tibet to further open up the landscape and extract \nTibet\u2019s natural resources. Such projects include a network of strategic \nrail routes and major damming and hydropower projects, the effects of \nwhich are likely to be irreversible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The IPCC is an influential UN body established by the UN Environment \nProgram (UNEP) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) to review\n the science related to climate change and its impacts and to provide \nresponse options for policymakers and world leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a press conference on Sept. 25, the IPCC revealed its findings \nthat sea levels are rising at an ever-faster rate as ice and snow \nshrink, and oceans are getting more acidic and losing oxygen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The main findings of the report relating to Tibet are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Referring to the impacts downstream, one of the lead authors of the \nreport, Anjal Prakash, said: \u201cSnow and glacier melt from high mountains \nhelps to sustain the rivers that deliver water resources to downstream \npopulations. Due to global warming and its implications in the water \nresources in the Himalayan Hindu Kush region, three sectors would be \ndirectly affected\u2014water for domestic use, agriculture and \nhydroelectricity.\u201d[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the high risks, and the global importance of the Tibetan \nPlateau, the Chinese government has intensified dam-building accompanied\n by massive road and infrastructure construction in areas that were once\n among the least disturbed habitats on earth. A major goal of China\u2019s \nFive-Year Plan of 2016 to 2020 has been to intensify the buildup of dams\n on all of Tibet\u2019s major rivers, with cascading dam construction on wild\n mountain rivers involving powerful state-owned Chinese consortiums.[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n The IPCC report, which was approved on Sept. 24 by 195 member \ncountries, will be a crucial scientific input at the 25th Conference of \nParties at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in \nChile in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The IPCC refers to the importance of indigenous knowledge in terms of\n mitigation of impacts of climate change, stating: \u201cSince the mid-20th \ncentury, the shrinking cryosphere in the Arctic and high-mountain areas \nhas led to predominantly negative impacts on food security, water \nresources, water quality, livelihoods, health and well-being, \ninfrastructure, transportation, tourism and recreation, as well as \nculture of human societies, particularly for indigenous peoples [\u2026]. \nCosts and benefits have been unequally distributed across populations \nand regions. Adaptation efforts have benefited from the inclusion of \nIndigenous knowledge and local knowledge.\u201d[15]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n In direct contrast to this approach, the Chinese government excludes \nTibetan expertise from decision-making and blames Tibetan nomads for the\n degradation of Tibet\u2019s vast grasslands, an approach that is \nincreasingly contested even within the People\u2019s Republic of China. The \nIPCC and experts around the world uphold a scientific consensus that \nmass removal of pastoralists from their land is extremely damaging \nbecause indigenous stewardship and herd mobility are essential to both \nthe health of rangelands and climate change mitigation.[16]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n There are also profound implications for regional stability. \n\u201cUpstream-downstream conflict over extractions, dam-building and \ndiversions has so far largely been averted through water-sharing \ntreaties, but as the climate becomes less predictable and scarcity \nincreases, the risk of unrest within\u2014let alone between\u2014nations grows,\u201d \nwrote Gaia Vince in an Observer report.[17]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Matteo Mecacci, president of the International Campaign for Tibet: <\/em> \u201cThe last IPCC report on climate change and the land highlighted how \nChinese policies in Tibet have increased the vulnerability of Tibetan \npastoralists to climate change. This latest report on the cryosphere \nhighlights the risks now facing not just communities high on the plateau\n but the millions living downstream. This is a warning that must be \nheeded before it is too late to protect against future shocks. \nCollaboration among international organizations, governments, civil \nsociety stakeholders and, importantly, Tibetan pastoralists in research \nand responses to changes in the Tibetan Plateau\u2019s ecosystem, water \nresources and policies is urgently needed. Such an approach must be \ndeveloped to ensure durable approaches to adapting to and mitigating \nclimate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Footnotes:<\/strong> After largely overlooking Tibet in its past reports, the United Nations\u2019 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has now raised the alarm on the state of the environment of the Tibetan plateau, warning of serious sequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":12341,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categorie":[666],"news_tag":[687],"class_list":["post-12340","nieuws","type-nieuws","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie-newsinternational-political-news","news_tag-environmentunited-nations-and-tibet"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQuote:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n\u201cAs a storehouse of freshwater and the source of the earth\u2019s eight \nlargest river systems, the Tibetan Plateau is a critical resource for \nthe world\u2019s 10 most densely populated nations surrounding it. This \ncritical report sounds the alarm\u2014Tibet\u2019s climate emergency matters to \nthe entire world, and must no longer be ignored. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
[1]<\/strong> IPCC, 2019, \u2018Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate\u2019, https:\/\/www.ipcc.ch\/srocc\/download-report<\/a>\/, page 149 (chapter 2, page 18). The IPCC approved and accepted the Special Report at its 51st Session held on 20 \u2013 23 September 2019. The approved Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was presented at a press conference on 25 September 2019.
[2]<\/strong> Ibid., IPCC report, 2019, page 140 (chapter 2, page 9). The report states: \u201cMountain surface air temperature observations in Western North America, European Alps, High Mountain Asia show warming over recent decades at an average rate of 0.3\u00b0C per decade, with a likely range of \u00b10.2\u00b0C, thereby outpacing the global warming rate 0.2 \u00b1 0.1 \u00b0C per decade, (IPCC, 2018). Underlying data from global and regional studies are compiled in Table SM2.2, and Figure 2.2 provides a synthesis on mountain warming trends, mostly based on studies using in-situ observations. Local warming rates depend on the season (high confidence). For example, in the European Alps, warming has been found to be more pronounced in summer and spring (Auer et al., 2007; Ceppi et al., 2012), while on the Tibetan Plateau warming is stronger in winter (Liu et al., 2009; You et al., 2010).\u201d
[3]<\/strong> The IPCC report uses the PRC\u2019s preferred English transliteration of the Tibetan name, rendered as Nyainqentanglha. Ibid., IPCC report, 2019, page 146 (chapter 2, page 15).
[4]<\/strong> Ibid., IPCC report, 2019, and IPCC, 2019, \u2018Summary for Policymakers\u2019 in \u2018Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate\u2019.\u2019 https:\/\/report.ipcc.ch\/srocc\/pdf\/SROCC_SPM_Approved.pdf<\/a>.
[5]<\/strong> According to the IPCC report, Op. Cit., \u201cScenario simulations for the Tibet Plateau until 2100 estimate permafrost area to be strongly reduced, for example by 22\u201364% for RCP2.6 and RCP8.5 and a spatial resolution of 0.5\u00ba (Lu et al., 2017),\u201d page 152 (chapter 2, page 21).
[6]<\/strong> The IPCC report suggests as a result a transition toward more episodic and intense monsoonal precipitation, especially in the easternmost part of the Himalayan chain.
[7]<\/strong> Op. cit. IPCC, 2019, \u2018Summary for Policymakers\u2019, page 30.
[8]<\/strong> Op. cit., IPCC report, 2019, page 161 (chapter 2, page 30).
[9]<\/strong> Gaia Vince explains in an article in The Observer: \u201cGlaciers are time capsules, built snowflake by snowflake from the skies of the past and, as they melt, they deliver back into circulation the constituents of that archived air. Dangerous pesticides such as DDT (widely used for three decades before being banned in 1972) and perfluoroalkyl acids are now being washed downstream in meltwater and accumulating in sediments and in the food chain.\u201d The Observer, \u2018The world has a third pole \u2013 and it\u2019s melting quickly\u2019, September 15, 2019, https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/environment\/2019\/sep\/15\/tibetan-plateau-glacier-melt-ipcc-report-third-pole.<\/a>
[10]<\/strong> Glaciers surge when water accumulates at the base of the ice. Water can accumulate at the bed of glaciers from several causes. A large thickening from snow accumulation can lower the pressure melting point of the ice creating meltwater. Warmer ice can move more easily and that friction in turn creates more warming.
[11]<\/strong> Op. Cit., IPCC report, 2019, page 169 (chapter 2, page 38). According to scientists, shared factors\u2014such as short-term weather conditions, longer-term climate change, and the underlying geological or topographic environment\u2014may have played a role in the collapse of these two glaciers. See NASA report, \u2018A SECOND MASSIVE ICE AVALANCHE IN TIBET\u2019, HTTPS:\/\/VISIBLEEARTH.NASA.GOV\/VIEW.PHP?ID=88953<\/a>
[12]<\/strong> (Nyima and Hopping, 2019).
[13]<\/strong> Press Trust of India, September 25, 2019, \u2018Hindu Kush at risk of losing over 60% glaciers by 2100: Green group\u2019, https:\/\/www.business-standard.com\/article\/pti-stories\/64-glaciers-in-hindu-kush-himalayan-region-may-be-lost-by-2100-ipcc-report-119092501137_1.html<\/a>.
[14]<\/strong> International Campaign for Tibet report, \u2018Damming Tibet\u2019s Rivers\u2019, May 30, 2019, https:\/\/savetibet.org\/damming-tibets-rivers-new-threats-to-tibetan-area-under-unesco-protection\/<\/a>.
[15]<\/strong> Op. Cit., IPCC, 2019, \u2018Summary for Policymakers\u2019 in \u2018Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate\u2019, section A7.
[16]<\/strong> International Campaign for Tibet analysis, \u2018Chinese policies increase risk of climate emergency for Tibetan nomads, UN panel says\u2019, August 12, 2019, https:\/\/savetibet.org\/chinese-policies-increase-risk-of-climate-emergency-for-tibetan-nomads-un-panel-says\/<\/a>.
[17]<\/strong> Op. Cit., The Observer, \u2018The world has a third pole \u2013 and it\u2019s melting quickly\u2019, September 15, 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"