Saving Himalayas from climate catastrophe

Climate change is affecting the Arctic and the Himalayas more severely than other places of the globe. Though lately drawn into controversy, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 4th assessment report predicted that the Himalayas would lose its entire snow by 2035. Yet, the precise date to this effect might be debated because the world seriously lacks temporal data on snow meltdown in the Himalayas. However, if one accepts the hard data that temperature rise in the Himalayas is many times higher than in the lower altitude, one cannot deny that the rate of Himalayan melting is leading to serious consequences. Obviously, loss of snow will have serious implications on critical watersheds, biodiversity, scenic beauty and people’s livelihoods and should be treated as a global concern. If the Himalayan ecosystem gets destroyed, the world cannot produce another such system! Nepal strongly voiced its concerns about this during the Copenhagen summit last year.

GLOBAL RESPONSE

World’s reaction to climate change is only limited to lowering global temperature by reducing the level of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, which does not really address the Himalayan problem.

Following the Kyoto Protocol (KP) as per the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change 1992 (UNFCCC), many countries of the world agreed to reduce GHG emission by 5.2 percent over the 1990 level. While the major focus of the protocol is self-reduction of such gases by industrial countries, it also provides for creating indirect offsets focusing at the developing countries through what has been called Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The world through Bali Road Map (2007) aimed to correct KP’ s perceived shortfall in achieving adequate and fair target.

For developing countries, it was decided that a more challenging approach needs to be taken than the contemporary CDM. Now the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) regime is aiming at providing financial compensation to reduce the current rate of deforestation and forest degradation and to maintain the forest carbon stock. This would sharply contrast with the CDM provision in which such payments were limited to creation of new carbon stock through afforestation and reforestation.
Though yet to be globally agreed, there has been a major conceptual leap toward an attempt to reduce the absolute level of GHG emission and create carbon offsets through additional mechanism like REDD+. Agreement on this could not be reached in Copenhagen, but the world is trying its best to do so by Cancun Convention in 2010. But the question still looms large: Will it be instrumental in saving the Himalayas from melting? The answer is no.

Effectively checking the Himalayas from melting would require maintaining global temperature below 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial era and the concomitant GHG emission below 350 parts per million (PPM). If we look at the present scenario in which the world has failed to agree for even a modest rise of 2 degrees and 450 PPM, such drastic cut seems unlikely. Conserving the Himalayan watershed might in fact require a number of extra considerations.

Temperature rise in the Himalayan region cause meltdown of thick ‘permafrost’ accumulated over centuries. During this process, methane is released whose effect to warming is 25 times higher than carbon dioxide, the dominant gas in causing global warming. This would evidently trigger warming process with multiplier effect. This may be compared to the story of Raktabij in Hindu mythology where an attempt of the divinity to destroy the devil was self-defeating owing to the reason that every single drop of devil’s blood would add to birth of another devil, thus making it invincible.

Another culprit could be ‘aerosol’ which originates from inefficient combustion of industrial fuels. The ‘black carbon particles’ thus produced, in particular, is known to cause warming with more localized effect compared to other GHGs whose effects are global. Obviously, a country sandwiched between rapidly industrialized countries like China and India may witness aerosol affecting the Himalayas.

It is clear that Nepal has failed to benefit from the contemporary CDM due to its complicated monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements. Conceived REDD+ mechanism may be even more demanding in terms of MRV owing to numerous tedious qualifications including ‘base line’, ‘additionality’, ‘permanency’ and ‘leakage’. Unless this overall carbon crediting process is simplified, Nepal will not be able to benefit from this global provision or contribute to the global climate change mitigation.

While Himalayan watersheds provide services to the world, those are largely unaccounted for in the current crediting system as the main focus is GHG. Watershed, biodiversity, scenic beauty conservation and local livelihoods are major services, which can be shared with the world. This would call for more payment for all ecological services the Himalayan watershed could furnish than parochially considering GHG for payments. Failing this, poor Nepalis may not be inclined to put extra effort to conserve the resource base whose benefits are not only confined to Nepal. Though this may sound philosophical, there may be one more thing to consider. Nepal has innovated community forestry management system through decades of trial and error, and the world can largely benefit from this knowledge system to fight climate change in economical and sustainable manner.

To conclude, Himalayas require more holistic dealing of the environment than what is allowed by current GHG crediting modality. This evidently calls for unprecedented effort through direct interface and collaboration between relevant climate stakeholders namely scientists, climate negotiators (national and international), civil society and grassroots communities.
Sources: http://bit.ly/aQP3p7