The UN has declared this year to be the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, making it a fitting moment to confront the stark reality that the world’s ice sheets are melting. Climate change is accelerating this trend, particularly in the Hindu Kush Himalayas — a region known as the Earth’s “Third Pole,” because it contains the largest volume of ice outside of the arctic and Antarctica.
That mountain range, which stretches across 3,500km and spans eight countries, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, is warming roughly three times faster than the global average. If temperatures rise by 3°C above preindustrial levels by the end of this century, up to 75 percent of the region’s glaciers would melt, reducing water availability, undermining food and energy security, and exacerbating biodiversity loss.
Glacial melt thus threatens irreversible damage to nearby communities and local economies. However, it would also fuel instability around the globe by increasing migration, disrupting trade and causing food prices to rise.
Illustration: Mountain People
The 2021 flood disaster in Nepal’s Melamchi River offers a glimpse of what is to come. Unusually heavy monsoon rains, coupled with excessive snowmelt, triggered a debris flow that wiped out thousands of hectares of agricultural land and destroyed critical infrastructure, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without access to water.
As the glaciers retreat, there would be too little water — a problem that is projected to afflict the Hindu Kush Himalayas by 2050. Dwindling river flows would make it more difficult to irrigate crops in an area that produces about one-third of the world’s rice and one-quarter of its wheat. Water supply and sanitation systems would become difficult to maintain, adding to the 1 billion people who already lack access to basic sanitation in the region. Food insecurity would almost surely worsen as well, while communities and even entire industries would likely need to migrate in search of fresh water. Asia’s poorest and most vulnerable populations would be hit the hardest.
The world must take urgent action to avert the disastrous effects of accelerating glacial melt in that region. That means deepening our knowledge by investing in multi-hazard risk assessment, because the extent of the damage would largely depend on whether global temperatures rise by 1.5°C, 1.8°C, 2°C or 3°C.
We must also strengthen integrated river basin management by enhancing data collection, facilitating knowledge sharing, optimizing water management, and coordinating among people and communities living upstream and downstream.
Ensuring that new and existing infrastructure is climate-resilient is essential for maintaining access to safe drinking water and energy security, as well as sanitation, irrigation and transport systems. It is equally important to protect ecosystems and promote nature-based solutions such as afforestation, reforestation, wetland preservation and flood-plain restoration.
Every component of that strategy requires more financing. Development institutions must continue to scale up investment in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, and work together to recast that glacial region and its river basins as a global public good, especially given their importance for agricultural and industrial activities.
Lastly, the international community must advance the equitable use of shared glacial resources through cooperation and diplomacy. That would help defuse potential tensions and promote sustainable development, ensuring that the region’s glaciers serve as a force for peace rather than conflict.
The Asian Development Bank (of which I am president) has taken steps to meet some of those goals. Together with the Green Climate Fund and country partners, the bank recently launched the Glaciers to Farms program, which would mobilize US$3.5 billion to strengthen climate resilience in agriculture in central and west Asia. Meanwhile, its Building Adaptation and Resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalayas-Bhutan and Nepal initiative is helping plan and design climate-resilient infrastructure and services. The bank is also piloting new financing instruments, such as eco-compensation mechanisms, carbon markets and water trading, and sustainability-linked bonds.
When UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) launched the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation last month, WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo said that it should serve as “a wake-up call to the world.”
The global community must do everything in its power — from building climate resilience to accelerating the green transition and promoting regional cooperation — to ensure a sustainable future for the billions of people who depend on glaciers and their related ecosystems. Failure to act now would have catastrophic consequences for us all.
Masatsugu Asakawa is president of the Asian Development Bank.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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