South Asia co-operates on climate change

By G M Mourtoza

(October 09, Kathmandu, Sri Lanka Guardian) A recent conference held in the Nepali capital, Kathmandu, on tackling climate change in South Asia has proposed a new way of managing the Himalayan rivers.

The delegates agreed a statement, the Kathmandu Vision, calling for the region’s rivers to be subject to a system called basin-based management, which would treat them as part of the wider environment.

Plans for the conference to agree a Kathmandu Declaration on tackling climate change came to nothing when India refused to agree, saying a meeting of South Asian environment ministers should be held first.

Nepal’s Prime Minister, Madhob Kumar Nepal, urged all the countries present to work together to combat climate change, and to demand compensation from the rich countries for emitting the pollution blamed for causing it.

Much of the Himalayan and Hindu Kush mountain range is in China, which was invited to the conference as an observer, though it did not attend.

Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal signed the Kathmandu Declaration.

Bangladesh proposed bringing the major rivers including the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna, under basin-based management and urged South Asian countries to work together to combat climate change.

The Kathmandu Vision says more than half the world’s people live in the basin of the Himalayan rivers, with more than 100 million people seriously affected by the melting of the glaciers.

Increasing floods and rising sea levels are having a devastating impact in the region, and all its countries can join in river management through dialogue and negotiation.

The Vision also spelt out South Asia’s needs for more scientific knowledge about its rivers and for additional financial and technical resources.

In a press briefing after the conference, the Joint Secretary of the Nepalese Environment Ministry, Purottom Dhimire, said the Vision would provide a platform for South Asian countries to work together in combating climate change.

The head of the Bangladeshi delegation, Saber Hossain Chowdhury MP, said basin-based water management would make it possible to ensure the proper use of the water of the rivers, so no single country would face damage or loss alone.

-Sri Lanka Guardian