Warming Himalayas demand a rethink on development
The Indian Himalayan Region is facing an existential crisis due to rapid climate change, with warming occurring at twice the global average. Experts are calling for a fundamental rethink of development strategies to mitigate the risks of glacier retreat and catastrophic flooding.
Why it matters
The rapid environmental degradation of the Himalayas poses a direct threat to water security and livelihoods for millions of people across Asia.
For decades, the fight for sustainable, climate-resilient, hazard-averse development in the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) has gone unheeded, and the region is witnessing frequent and severe climate-induced disasters.
The catastrophic Nepal floods of August 26 are a warning that the ‘global natural commons’, stretching from the Hindu Kush and Karakoram to the Himalayas, are in an existential crisis. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) have warned that warming in the high mountains of Asia is occurring at 0.3°C per decade, nearly twice the global average, “leading to glacier retreat, decreasing in turn the stability of mountain slopes and the integrity of infrastructure, threatening water security, livelihoods, ecosystems, and increasing disaster risk.”
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