Paro, Bhutan, January 21: Against the backdrop of a gaping information gap with regard to melting Himalayan glaciers and rising global concerns, experts from four South Asian countries wracked their brains to find a common ground on which to deal with the issue.

A two-day workshop on the Regional Glacial Lake Outburst Flood (GLOF) Risk Reduction Initiative in the Himalayas, attended by Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan, was held in Paro, Bhutan, in the second half of January.

It provided a regional platform “to learn from each other and reduce risk from GLOFs,” said the deputy minister of Nepal’s National Environment Commission, Dasho Nado Rinchen.

A forecast of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that if current trends continue, 80 per cent of Himalayan glaciers will disappear in 30 years.

IPCC has said 24 lakes have been identified as ‘dangerous’ in Bhutan and will burst by 2035; similarly listed are 26 lakes in Nepal, 16 lakes in India and 52 lakes in Pakistan.

However, the lack of precise data on the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region makes the understanding of the problem sketchy.

“Very little information is available at this point of time,” head of the Nobel Prize awarded IPCC, Dr. Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, told BT during the climate change conference in Poland last December. He described the available information as “meagre and inadequate” and stressed on the need for more research.

While speaking on the subject of the IPCC’s lake-burst forecast, Dr. Pachauri said, “That is entirely possible but nobody can make that kind of prediction.” He said the prediction depicts only one scenario but warned that Bhutan should not neglect it.

Early this month, BBC reported that experts, international organisations, and governments of the region have agreed to take immediate measures.

It was decided to gather crucial and basic information on climate change impacts and then design appropriate responses.

Seven landscapes have already been identified in eight countries, from Myanmar in the east to Kyrgyzstan in the west.

An official from the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) was quoted saying, “It will be a comprehensive study of all ecological aspects.” He added, “Before, such studies have happened here and there, but this time we are adopting a transect approach, which means it will cover latitudinal (from north to south) and altitudinal (high altitude) locations.”

Asserting the need for regional cooperation in taking action to fight the impact of climate change, the Chief Scientific Officer of the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, Dr. R.K. Sood said, “Glacial lakes are trans-boundary issues and require trans-boundary measures.”

Dr. Sood said Himachal Pradesh experienced a flood in 2005 after a glacial lake outburst in China and reasoned that such incidents affect countries irrespective of geographical boundaries.

However, he said, apart from one or two countries, most states in the region did not agree on all matters, denting the possibility of a regional cooperation.

Rajeev Issar of UNDP’s Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery (BPCR) said such initiatives require time, resources and technical expertise. He said only regional cooperation will enable an environment for countries to share technical expertise.

An official from the Department of Energy agreed that no comprehensive study has been done in the Himalayan region despite several independent studies.

The Co-director of the Asia Programme of The Mountain Institute, Mr. Brian Peniston, told BT that most of the studies conducted in the Himalayan region are desk reviews, or based on satellite pictures, and are limited in scope and lacked depth.

He said that in the absence of proper information, it is easy to overuse the limited available information and arrive at wrong conclusions.

Poznan, Poland, December 4: Bhutan is the country least affected by weather disasters in the SAARC region in 2007, and also in the decade 1998-2007, according to an international report released at the United Nations climate change conference in Poznan, Poland.

The Global Climate Risk Index (CRI) 2009 released on December 4 by Germanwatch, an environment and development organisation, showed Bhutan is the 115th most affected country in 2007, and stood 126th in the last decade’s list of nations most affected by climate change. Neighbouring Bangladesh has fared much worse and is the most affected of all countries in 2007.

The author of the report, Sven Harmeling of Germanwatch, said: “Bangladesh suffered heavily from cyclone Sidr and experienced more than 4,000 casualties and $10 billion by way of damages.”

Bangladesh was followed by North Korea and Nicaragua as the top three countries most affected by climate change.

Among the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries, Pakistan, at number five, is the only nation alongwith Bangladesh in the top 10 list. It is followed by Nepal at 18, India at 19, Afghanistan at 22, and Sri Lanka at 45. Maldives had not been evaluated.

The list of countries most affected in the decade 1998-2007 is led by Honduras and followed by Bangladesh.

India makes it to the top 10 affected countries in the past decade and stands at number 7. Nepal follows at 14, Pakistan at 31, Afghanistan at 32, and Sri Lanka at 82.

The figures show that Bhutan is the only SAARC nation ranked above 100 in both lists.

While developed countries like the United States and the United Kingdom stand as the 20th and 35th most affected respectively in 2007, and 16th and 77th most affected in the last decade, Sven Harmeling said the poorer countries were affected to a much greater degree than the rich ones. He added that developing countries had a far harder time coping with disasters compared to the developed countries.

The extreme weather events in 2007 claimed a record number of more than 15,000 human lives. Millions more were affected.

Global damages amounted to more than US $ 80 billion, which equals about Nu 4,000 billion, enough to finance Bhutan’s 10th Plan 28 times over at its estimated outlay of Nu 141 billion.

Sounding the alarm bell, the report states that changing climate will increase the frequency of storms, floods and other weather-related extreme conditions worldwide.

At the launch of the report, Maarten van Aalst, associate director of the Red Cross/Red Crescent Climate Centre in The Hague, said the considerable increase in the number of disasters “is partly due to rising vulnerability, and partly already reflecting global climate change — a trend which is bound to continue.”

“Water scarcity is going to grow and it is high time for Bhutan to think about managing its water resources,” the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Dr Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, told BT along the sidelines of the UN conference on climate change in Poznan, Poland.

The climate change scientist received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the IPCC together with co-recipient, former US vice president Al Gore. The Nobel was given to the IPCC and Al Gore for their efforts to address climate change.

“It is absolutely essential that Bhutan has to think in terms of more efficient use of water for a variety of purposes,” Dr Pachauri said.

The IPCC head said Bhutan, “needs to change the storage infrastructure whereby water would have to be stored for longer periods and in larger quantities.”

Attending the last two days of the conference, which concluded Friday, the deputy minister of the Bhutanese National Environment Commission, Dasho Nado Rinchen, said his nation is increasingly witnessing the impact of climate change. He agreed that it [climate change] has already reduced water levels in the rivers. He said plans are in place to manage water resources in the country.

Harvesting rain water is one of the nine-point priority projects identified by Bhutan to adapt to the impact of climate change, the deputy minister said.

Earlier, in a press conference, Dr Pachauri said the impact of climate change on the Himalayan region will affect 500 million people in South Asia and about 250 million in China.

Erratic rainfall will be one of the different ways in which it will impact the Himalayan region. The receding glacial cover would not only mean less supply of water to the rivers but would also cause a reduction in the level of ground water, which will trigger a shortage of water from all possible sources, he said.

Regarding Bhutan’s high dependence on hydropower, Dr Pachauri cautioned: “Bhutan needs to look at how the hydropower projects are likely to be impacted by the changes in the water flow in the future.”

Minister Rinchen said Bhutan is already bearing the brunt of the fluctuating river levels in the hydropower sector. In winter, when the river level is low, production at the 336-megawatt Chukha hydropower project decreases to less than 100 megawatt, and the Tala project produces between 400 and 500 megawatts, less than half of its 1,020 megawatt capacity.

He also added that the Department of Energy is thinking of managing river water by building water storage dams that will help production at the power plants when the water level in the rivers is low. “Water from the dams can also be used for other purposes,” he said.

Water is just one of the impending issues Bhutan will face as a result of climate change. “There is a whole range of adaptation (to climate change) measures that need to be taken (by Bhutan) at hand,” he said.

Apart from the glaring threat posed by possible glacial lake outburst floods, climate change has also affected Bhutan’s bio-diversity by impacting the migration of species. Dr Pachauri explained that species that existed in low regions are moving higher as a result of increasing temperature.

Forestry officials at home have found that some pine trees that grew best at certain altitudes in the past are now growing only at much higher temperatures, confirmed the director of the NEC, Sonam Yangley, who led the five-member Bhutanese delegation to the UN conference in Poznan.

Dr Pachauri said Bhutan is also likely to experience more landslides, and a major reason for this was the change in the precipitation pattern.

Yangley said that Bhutan has begun experiencing erratic rainfall. The increasing frustration of civil servants in Thimphu every winter, waiting for the first major snowfall, which is declared a holiday by the government, is also valid.

Dr Pachauri said the agricultural sector, which is the main source of livelihood in Bhutan and the region, will be widely affected.

He recommended change in agricultural practices and changes in crops, and also the development of new crops that are more resilient to the impact of climate change.

Dr Pachauri also said that individuals can contribute to saving the planet in all capacities. The bearded man joked that rearing beards could also reduce carbon emissions to the atmosphere as electric shavers emit carbon.

Earlier, in a press conference, he said being vegetarian also helps the cause. Selling meat at an industrial scale emits a lot of carbon through machines used in abattoirs, and also through refrigeration used in transporting meat. “All I ask is for people to eat less meat,” he said. “One can even contribute by switching off a bulb after using it.”

About 11,000 delegates from all over the world, including 189 countries, business houses, environmental organisations and research institutions are attending the 12-day United Nations Convention Framework on Climate Change conference in Poznan, Poland.

In a strong message, political leaders and scientists said during the opening of the conference that the global financial crisis will pass but the issue of climate change will be a permanent one.

During the opening of the conference, the prime minister of Denmark, Mr Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said he was confident that the financial crisis will soon be addressed. “On the contrary, climate change will only grow stronger [worsen], if we do not act now.”

The head of the UN climate change secretariat, Mr Yvo De Boer said, “Delaying action now will only make future action more costly.”

Chairing the conference, the Polish minister for environment, Professor Maciej Nowicki, warned: “Huge droughts and floods, and cyclones with increasingly more destructive power, tropical disease pandemics, and a dramatic decline of biodiversity — all these can cause social or even armed conflicts and migration of populations at an unprecedented scale.”

Bhutan has a five member delegation led by the director of its National Environment Commission, Sonam Yangley.

The negotiations on climate change have experienced many complications in the past. The United States has, so far, refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, which is an international agreement to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and the world’s only treaty on climate change.

The global cause has also created differences of opinion between the developed and the developing countries over how to address the issue. It achieved a breakthrough last year in Bali, Indonesia, when developing countries agreed to reduce green house gas emissions if they received money and technology from the developed countries. With the developed countries entangled in the financial crisis, experts fear that climate change may not receive the attention it needs.

In Poland, delegates will also discuss their vision for long term cooperative action on climate change. Countries have submitted proposals for stronger actions.

“The fact that there is a text on the table offers governments the first real opportunity to move beyond the phase of exchanging ideas into one where they will be expressing their position on specific proposals,” said Luiz Figueiredo Machado, chair of the Ad hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Action under the Convention.

According to Harald Dovland, Chair of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Further Commitments for Annex I Parties under the Kyoto Protocol, the conference at Poznan needs to address the ranges of greenhouse gas emission reductions for industrialised countries.

The Poznan conference also comes mid-way to the two-year action plan, which was adopted in the last conference in Bali. It envisaged finding a new and comprehensive deal to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. The new deal will be one of the most important outcomes of next year’s conference to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.