Defrosted - Nepali Times

The people in the mountains of Nepal do not know that the futures of their children and grandchildren are tied up with how the preparatory meetings for the international climate change conference next week in Copenhagen go.

Will the rich countries agree to cut back to 40 per cent of 1990 emissions in the next ten years (which scientists warn is needed to keep the average rise of global temperatures to within two degrees Celsius) or will they stall at the 13 per cent the Americans say is as far as they can go? The Copenhagen meet will also reveal whether the rich countries are actually willing to help developing countries make the switch from fossil fuel to renewables, and whether they will help to fund adaptation measures so the world's poor can cope with rising sea levels and receding snowlines.

Maps of the Everest region from the 1960s show no water in the Imja Glacier below Lhotse. Today there is a lake here two km long, 500 metres across and 100 metres deep. If Imja Tso bursts, it will unleash a catastrophic flood downstream.

Melting glaciers and receding snowlines are the most dramatic visible proof of global warming. Nearly 1 billion people downstream in China, southeast Asia, India and Pakistan depend on the Himalaya and the Tibetan plateau for water.

But the focus on snow and ice takes attention away from the water. The Himalaya is also a gigantic sponge storing groundwater. In fact, scientists estimate that only nine per cent of the water in the Ganga is from melting glaciers. The rest is from monsoon runoff, and climate change is also affecting weather patterns, leading to extreme rainfall events and droughts.

ALL PICS: KUNDA DIXIT

The Thamserku Glacier with its tongue-shaped moraine indicating the extent of the ice till recently.

Green lakes created by the melting glacier, coloured by copper-rich rocks below Ama Dablam.

The North Ama Dablam Glacier with melt pools where there used to be ice.

MELTDOWN: Imja Tso below the south wall of Lhotse, with Ama Dablam beyond, is now 2 km long. There was no lake here 40 years ago.

What should Nepal do?

Given the low per capita carbon footprint of Nepalis (less than one ton of carbon dioxide per person per year, compared to 30 tons in Europe and 300 tons per capita in Qatar) the issue of climate equity is bound to come up in Copenhagen next week.

No matter what Nepal does, it will not make that much of a dent in saving the world from climate change. But Nepal needs to switch to renewables not just to do our bit to save the planet, but also to save our economy. Nepal imports all of its petroleum products from refineries in India and the trade deficit is growing. This growing economic reliance on India is going to deepen as the world's oil reserves peak, and crude oil becomes more expensive. This will only increase our political dependence on our southern neighbour. Unless we implement a strategy to start a hydro economy. For Nepal, switching to renewables is a political imperative, not just an environmental question.

READ ALSO:
Climate ironies, EAST WEST with Kunda Dixit, 04 Dec 2009
Dateline Everest - FROM ISSUE #479 (04 DEC 2009 - 10 DEC 2009)
Himalayan tsunami - FROM ISSUE #479 (04 DEC 2009 - 10 DEC 2009)

1. Loday
It is nice to talk about climate change and other bigger issues when we don't have basic services like water and electricity. May be we need more intellectuals supervising our daliy lives than infratructures to live with.

Posted on: 05 DEC 2009 | 3:20 PM NST

2. jange
Glacial lakes forming and unforming are part of the natural cycle in this part of the world. Try and get off the global warming (or is it climate change now!) bandwagon and get your critical faculties one.

Posted on: 05 DEC 2009 | 3:42 PM NST

3. Bridget Harris
The huge number of fires burning plastic waste every minute of each day all across the country, must be a big contributing factor to the pollution which is causing a heating of the atmosphere here in Nepal. In the area where I stay in Pokhara, there are some days when we can hardly breath because of the toxic smoke in the air, as each household burns up their plastic rubbish. Sadly people do not understand that the sickly fumes drifting into their own homes is a great danger to the future health of their own families. Small children gather around the fires to warm their hands, how tragic is that. I am involved with tourism, bringing groups from the UK and the increasing pollution from the burning plastic will have a negative impact on tourism on Lakeside if it continues. Recently I had to move some guests from a Lakeside hotel because they had been woken in the early morning because their rooms were filled with toxic smoke from a fire burning in the backyard of the hotel. One of the guests remarked that they had not come all the way around the world at great expense to be poisoned in 'Paradise Pokhara' (the NTB advertisng slogan). I passed 11 plastic fires as I walked along Lakeside one evening recently and there were the tourists crossing the road with scarves over their faces trying to avoid the danger. As a tour operator, I and many others have gone to some lengths to educate our clients about responsible tourism and one of the issues we mention is the the difficulty of disposing of plastic waste in Nepal. We ask them to purify their own water whilst here and we give them a cotton shopping bag so that they can refuse plastic bags. This is a small effort on our part and our guests are only too willing to comply, but when faced with the increasing amount of plastic that each household produces each day, with no regulations as to its disposal, our efforts pale into insignificance. This issue must be taken up by the government, I don't know that I have ever seen it seriously discussed even. An education campaign to inform people of the danger, a better system for the collection of waste that is accessible to all even if they can't afford to pay, along with a serious effort to reduce the amount of plastic being used - banning plastic bags would be a start. This would constitute a real contribution on the part of Nepal's government to tackling pollution in it's own backyard, as well as protecting it's population from the health hazards of burning toxic waste and the health problems that today's children will surely develop as they grow.

Posted on: 06 DEC 2009 | 9:27 AM NST

4. Anuj Bhattachan
Let us first clean Bagmati river at the heart of Kathamandu, then talk about climate changes or say global warming..

Posted on: 06 DEC 2009 | 11:10 AM NST

5. Ken
A few years ago when I was living in Europe, I happened upon an historic art show in the Netherlands. The painted scenes from yesteryear included wintery vistas of ice skaters cavorting on the frozen canals of Amsterdam and other towns of Holland. It has been over a hundred years since the canals and rivers of Northern Europe were regularly freezing over to allow safe ice skating, and the change from that climate to the more moderate temperatures Europe enjoys today can't be pinned on human-induced global warming. What did cause this cold period in the past (called the Little Ice Age, I found out)? No one knows. Given the immense complexity of the incredible system that is the Earth, it is the height of arrogance to now claim that we can be confident beyond a reasonable doubt that human activity is responsible for any perturbations in average temperature that may now be occurring. Rather than debate what to do about 'climate change' (a new catch-all term that's come into vogue since temperature data don't show increasing temperatures this decade), better to concentrate on the imperative to reduce carbon usage for economic reasons, as Kunda concluded. With hundreds of millions of Chinese, Brazilians, Indians, and others now joining the ranks of the middle class, the fossil fueled system that has until recently only supported the middle classes of Europe, Japan, and North America needs to change to a more sustainable basis, to prevent competition for scarce energy resources from souring an otherwise welcome development.

Posted on: 07 DEC 2009 | 10:46 PM NST

6. jange
To quote from Nepalnews.com- " It is estimated that about 600 Nepalis including the government delegates, journalists and experts representing various national and international organisations are participating in the summit." Now, there is a gravy train if ever I saw one. And these are the people who are exhorting us to reduce our consumption, use less energy etc. etc.? Sure sign of a scam is when the preacher doesn't practice what he preaches. Anyway, nice to know that Nepalis have the skills to get themselves on a gravy train.

Posted on: 10 DEC 2009 | 5:45 AM NST

7. Maggie
Yes, the planet is changing and for me, change starts in my own backyard. I can't stop world poverty or change the profit-before-people approach of multinational corporations that's raping our world of her resources and destroying the soil, the environment in the process. I can't wait for politicians to figure out how they're gonna keep their power and actually change the situation. But... It doesn't matter whether I'm trekking in the precious mountains in Nepal or slogging out it in suburban Melbourne Australia, I can still choose the attitude I take in life. I can say 'no' to plastic, 'no' to being sarcastic and bitter and complaining and frightened of the situation, I can walk and use my bicycle, I can compost my garden waste, participate in the debate, and add my voice in support, I can turn off the aircon and live simply and be grateful that I actually have a life. Everyone can do some small thing to make a difference. Please value your power to choose.

Posted on: 02 JAN 2010 | 6:55 AM NST