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1. For five years I have been watching the climate story unfold in South Asia for @third_pole.
It is a story quite often reduced to disasters, pollution, and hardship.
Disasters and drama dominate the news cycle but the story encompasses much more than that.
It is a story quite often reduced to disasters, pollution, and hardship.
Disasters and drama dominate the news cycle but the story encompasses much more than that.
3. In terms of disasters there are four things that dominate climate reportage from S Asia: droughts, floods, the rising sea, and fields turned infertile.
Some of these stories are crippling, like in Afghanistan, where people were forced to sell children: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/01/17/drought-afghanistan/
Some of these stories are crippling, like in Afghanistan, where people were forced to sell children: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/01/17/drought-afghanistan/
4. Droughts in India have led to tens of thousands of farmer suicides, and farmers doing well have lost all expectations: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/06/13/surviving-indias-drought-people-have-stopped-expecting-a-decent-life/
(The second part of the story shows how some have adapted, nevertheless.)
(The second part of the story shows how some have adapted, nevertheless.)
5. Floods are no less crippling, and are recurrent, wiping out the fortunes of the most marginalised (also women are disproportionately among he dead because in many S Asian societies they are not taught to swim): https://www.thethirdpole.net/2020/08/14/bangladesh-floods-displace-most-vulnerable-along-the-padma/
6. Almost hidden from discussion is the slow creep of the rising seas - the Indian Ocean is warming faster than the rest - bringing salinity and poverty to people already very poor: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/01/15/rising-sea-swamps-island-along-bengal-coast/
7. While some of this has to do with just the warming world, human intervention, often the mismanagement of river systems, plays its part, as river waters are not reaching the sea, allowing saltwater to come flooding in, to devastating effect: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2020/05/05/pakistan-indus-delta/
8. The people of South Asia aren't just suffering, though, many are trying to innovate their ways out of this crisis.
In Nepal a women-led solar company is pushing clean power: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/06/16/woman-led-company-wins-award-for-lighting-up-nepal/
In Nepal a women-led solar company is pushing clean power: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/06/16/woman-led-company-wins-award-for-lighting-up-nepal/
9. In Pakistan, micro-hydropower projects, which are community owned, and do little to disturb the environment, have been a prominent success in mountain communities: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/07/27/small-hydropower-transforms-lives-in-pakistans-mountains/
10. In India, the development of a low-cost arsenic filter signals hope for poor communities struggling with a massive problem: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/01/22/indian-scientists-develop-low-cost-arsenic-water-filter/
11. Bhutan has shown the way for conserving habitats to preserve the tiger - a lesson other countries would do well to learn: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/03/18/tiger-population-increase/
12. And this story of how a Japanese design for urban forests, adapted to India, was further adapted to Pakistan, shows that we can learn from each other: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/04/23/building-a-forest-in-the-heart-of-karachi/
13. And that's key, we are in this together. We are not going to be able to manage these issues within our borders.
India and Nepal have to learn to talk to each more fruitfully than in the past: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/04/26/graphic-story-india-nepal-dammed-by-water/
India and Nepal have to learn to talk to each more fruitfully than in the past: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/04/26/graphic-story-india-nepal-dammed-by-water/
14. Civil society organisations are already cooperating to save lives on the Bhutan-India border: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/07/04/community-communications-save-lives-in-assam/
15. Even the four countries along the Brahmaputra - China, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh - are finding that (despite significant tensions and suspicions) they need to, and can, talk to each other: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2018/04/19/talking-with-the-chinese-on-the-brahmaputra/
16. Nor does this conversation end even in this region. The polar regions and the Himalayan region interact in a whole set of ways, and we cannot save one set without the other: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/01/24/india-norway-climate-cooperation/
17. Sadly, though, much of the problems are undermined by a diplomatic system where we are still arguing about who is responsible, and who should pay (the developed countries are, but it isn't happening): https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/12/10/no-money-for-climate-loss-and-damage/
18. Added to this, poorer countries are adopting development models that are likely to be disastrous in the long-term (though profitable for some corporations, especially in real estate, in the short-term): https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/02/13/mismanaged-urbanisation-and-the-destruction-of-indian-wetlands/
19. Bangladesh, a country with no coal deposits, and huge vulnerabilities to climate change, is all set to go from 2% coal produced energy to 50% by 2022 (relax, it will fail to meet targets, but still): https://www.thethirdpole.net/2017/02/09/will-bangladeshs-future-be-coal-black/
20. And water mafias operate in many major cities in the region, undermining rule of law, undercutting the ability of the state to pay for infrastructure, and leaving urban areas easy prey for water shortages when droughts hit: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2016/11/10/karachis-burgeoning-water-mafia/
21. I wrote this for Indian elections, but it is true for the whole region, climate change and the green transition, are central to every single major political issue, and it is happily ignored: https://www.thethirdpole.net/2019/04/30/silently-climate-change-driving-indias-election/
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