Himalaya-Third Pole Circle: Forum for Dialogue Built on the Arctic Experience

　　Dagfinnur Sveinbjörnsson（Iceland）

　　Introduction

　　This paper consists of three parts. First, it identifies the need for greater scientific engagement in the Himalaya-Third Pole region and the way in which the region has been referred to as a “white spot” due to the limited availability of data. It then outlines the fundamental parameters of the Arctic experience with a focus on what motivated and guided the growing collaboration to begin with. Finally, it presents a proposal for enhanced cooperation within what has been called the Himalaya-Third Pole Circle; an open and dynamic dialogue.

　　Part One – “White Spot”

　　Asia is arguably the continent most sensitive to climate change. There are at least two reasons. First, the ecosystems of the Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau are particularly sensitive. Second, the number of people affected by changes in this ecosystem is far greater than in any other part of the globe. The issue in turn becomes more pronounced by the fact that scientific measurements indicate that global warming in the Himalaya and on the Tibetan Plateau has been taking place at three times the global average. It does not require a lively imagination to comprehend that profound changes in the climate will have deep-seated consequences for a host of environmental factors across the region, which in turn will affect the livelihood of millions of people.

　　With regards to glaciers and water, scientific efforts have been limited and fragmented to a truly alarming extent. The Himalaya has been referred to as a “white spot”, a term which indicates “little or no data”. The reason for this is of course that the glaciers in the Himalaya are inaccessible and it is costly and difficult to accumulate the required data. And also due to the complexities involved in the flow dynamics of glaciers, which does not lend itself to a single formula across the region due to their physical complexity and spatial diversity.

　　It is important to emphasize that it is not enough to perform the scientific research and to create the information. It will be fundamental to simultaneously improve the quality and accessibility of different kind of data and to make it available across separate spheres of scientific engagement.

　　Along with an effort to step up scientific analysis in the Himalaya of the glaciers and the ecosystems and of the impact downstream it will be necessary to design the mechanisms for strengthened communications between the scientific community and policymakers. This will include available knowledge about the relationship between changes in the glaciers and the region´s hydrology and environment and the livelihood of millions of people.

　　To illustrate the kind of scientific knowledge that needs to be established and made available it is encouraging to be able to refer to recent efforts, which have generated fundamentally important findings. Focusing on the glaciers and melt water we now know that melt water contributes 30% of the total flow of water in the eastern Himalaya, whereas it contributes 50% in the central and western Himalaya and 80% in the Karakoram. Relatively recent estimates by Rees and Collins also indicate that if all the glaciers in the Himalaya were to disappear, there would be about 33%reduction in the mean flow annually in the west compared to the 1990 level, while the reduction in the east would be about 4-18%.

　　The nature of the challenge is such that it must be a defining aspect of the effort to initiate and sustain scientific projects across national borders. It will also be necessary to ensure that the knowledge thus created will find an effective audience in the region generally and particularly among the policy making authorities. In an effort to initiate, facilitate and sustain a process of this nature the experience in the Arctic, especially in the last 10-15 years, can offer both a general inspiration and useful practical guidelines.

　　Part Two – The Arctic Model

　　For decades the Arctic was a militarily sensitive and diplomatically complicated area. It was indeed a region of military bases, submarines and intercontinental missiles, intense security concerns and elevated military suspicions. In fact, it was among the most militarized areas in the world. Collaborations and mutual deliberations among Arctic nations as a collective identity were all but impossible during the Cold War. Relations were frozen into the ice covering most of the vast expanses of sea.

　　The icebreaker was Mikhail Gorbachev´s speech in Murmansk in the fall of 1987. Gorbachev called for peaceful cooperation in developing the resources of the North and emphasized the vital importance of an exchange of experience and knowledge, what he summarized as joint efforts “to work out an overall concept of rational development of northern areas.” In this regard the speech emphasized the willingness and desire of the Soviet Union to share its experience in scientific exploration and to collaborate internationally across the Arctic, as it would be of immense importance for the whole of mankind. Gorbachev stressed the special importance of cooperation of the northern countries in environmental protection. In the general context of the speech the Soviet leader emphasized especially the interests of the indigenous populations of the North, and that the study of ethnic distinctions and development of cultural ties between northern peoples would require special attention. 

　　Gorbachev´s call to action and for international collaboration soon found resonance in the face of rapid and indeed dramatic changes of the ecosystem. Calls for increased scientific research where echoed in other countries across the region and became ever more pressing. It was clear, however, that research initiatives in this vast and enormously challenging geographic space, and the imparting of knowledge and findings that would need to follow, let alone the policy measures that would eventually be called for, could not become effective in the absence of a formal arrangement for regional collaboration. The gradual thawing of the Cold War made explorations possible and when it ended entirely new forms of cooperation became tenable.

　　The prelude to the establishment of the Arctic Council, were meetings and conventions among the Arctic countries focusing on cooperative measures to protect the Arctic Environment.

　　The following three examples are illustrative: During the Icelandic Chairmanship of the Arctic Council 2002-2004, it initiated a research effort into the general implications and consequences of climate change in the Arctic. The result was published in 2005 in a report entitled: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment, a report that has in the following years been of key importance in organizing and synchronizing reactions to the challenges climate change presents to the region.8 During the same period the Arctic Council published the Arctic Human Development Report in 2004, explaining and highlighting the consequences of climate change for the 4 million people that inhabit the Arctic.9 During the Danish Chairmanship 2009-2011 of the Council a large scientific research project was launched: “Climate Change and the Cryosphere: Snow, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic”. The principal focus of this project is research into the Greenland ice sheet, rigorously examining the way in which that huge chunk of ice will react to the predicted changes in temperature. A recent report produced by this initiative has established that the Greenland glacier is melting more rapidly than was previously understood.

　　The establishment of the Arctic Council has indeed been called a major political accomplishment of the post-Cold War-era. This was confirmed in May 2013 when a ministerial meeting of the Council in Kiruna extended observer status to leading countries in Europe and Asia so from now on a majority of the G-20 countries will in one way or the other be at the Arctic table.

　　Part Three – Himalaya-Third Pole Circle

　　The establishment of a Himalaya-Third Pole Circle as an informal, dynamic and open forum is motivated by the idea that the experience in the Arctic in general and the Arctic Council in particular can in many respects serve as a model for the kind of collaboration needed in the Himalaya.

　　The third workshop of the Third Pole Environment Program – an international program which aims to facilitate scientific collaboration among countries in the region and with international institutions – was hosted in Iceland in the early fall of 2011. The first workshop had been convened in Beijing and the second in Kathmandu in 2010. Scientists from across the Himalaya presented their findings and engaged in formal and informal discussions on the future prospects of collaboration in the region. Following discussions, deliberations and diplomatic maneuvering the 4th workshop was convened in Dehradun, India in the beginning of April 2013.

　　In meetings and discussions during the workshop the idea was systematically discussed with leading representatives from India, China as well as other prominent leaders of collaboration in the Himalaya region.

　　The Himalaya-Third Pole Circle is an effort to address the threefold challenge identified above. It does so by systematically establishing relationships across national borders in the region. It builds on relationships that have already been established with scientific institutions, among them the Indian Institute of Science, ICIMOD and the Chinese Academy of Sciences and constitutes a special effort to convene meetings where policy makers and agents of political leverage can meet with established scientists, leaders of regional institutions and others engaged in work which has implications across national borders.

　　The goal is to evolve an established entity with recognition and influence in the spheres of science and policy and a track record of collaboration; to create an information platform for planners, decision makers, private sector and other users, which can constitute a venue for cooperation and collaboration among countries in the region.

　　The next meeting of the Himalaya-Third Pole Circle will be convened in Bhutan in the fall of 2014 in collaboration with the Royal Government of Bhutan. The focus will be on the nexus between energy, water and food security. A part of the meeting, which also will constitute a special side meeting, will be a workshop on a comprehensive assessment report on the nature and consequences of climate change in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya region. The work on the assessment report has been launched by ICIMOD and is, at least partly, motivated and inspired by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Report, which was published several years ago.

　　As the Himalaya-Third Pole Circle becomes further established it will be able to serve a role in connecting high-level diplomacy with ground-level research and policymaking. Thus it would head the call of David G. Victor et.al. in a 2012 spring issue of Foreign Affairs, where they call for international efforts to “fund networks to connect local authorities all over the world to one another”, allow them to share information about best practices, “connect local authorities to international experts who can help them assess and respond to climate vulnerabilities in their areas.”

　　This view is in keeping with – can in fact be seen as a description of – what has already taken place in the Arctic which in a fundamental sense offers a model and guiding principles for the Himalaya-Third Pole Circle and the vision that shall define its operations.

　　(Dagfinnur Sveinbjörnsson, Chairman of Climate Research Fund)