Essay by Michael Quinane

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 Climate Change impacts in the South Asian region

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) has the ability to play a significant role in how the South Asian region adapts to and mitigates climate change. Since its formation in 1985, SAARC has been unsuccessful in addressing regional concerns as bilateral tensions; particular the ongoing tensions between India and Pakistan have inhibited its ability to achieve real progress. Climate change is a challenge that requires the SAARC nations, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, to work multilaterally and using a systems approach, to tackle the problem of climate change that will have severe consequences in the region. To successfully address these issues, SAARC must come up with a solution to resolve the ongoing conflicts between its member states, so that a better culture of cooperation can occur within the region enabling all member states to effectively prepare their citizens for the effects of climate change.

            Much of the discourse about how best to tackle climate change has been on an international scale. The most significant example being the Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015. However, it is at a regional level where the effects of climate change are going to felt the most. Regional organisations such as SAARC have ‘often been relegated to marginal roles’ in dealing with climate change but as the effects of climate change become more apparent ‘this will likely change’ as ‘competition for scarce resources increases and the impacts of this scarcity are felt at a regional level’ (Glantz M H, 1992). This competition for resources has already been seen in the ‘Wullar Barrage Dispute’ (Majid A, 2017) between India and Pakistan where India wishes to build a dam over the Jehlum River in Kashmir, along with several other dam projects in the disputed territory. This conflict is ongoing, with India wishing to ‘seize the reins of political supremacy by establishing hydro-hegemony’ (Qureshi W A., 2017) whilst Pakistan’s is deeply concerned that ‘the structure would provide India the capability to manipulate flow of water to Pakistan’s disadvantage (Majid A, 2017). The water flow of Pakistan’s rivers has been steadily decreasing and Pakistan argues that this is a direct result of India ‘robbing Pakistani waters’ with their dam projects and trying to ‘get a hold of all the water resources’ (Qureshi W A., 2017) in the Kashmir region to assert political dominance. India however, ‘maintains that climate change, not its projects’ has led to the decrease in water flow in rivers throughout the Kashmir region (Quereshi W A., 2017). Clearly, it would seem of vital importance that these conflicts should be discussed and resolved at the SAARC forums, however, SAARC currently ‘excludes bilateral and contentious issues from deliberations’ (Southasia, 2017) and so is impotent to intervene in this conflict with India and Pakistan over precious water resources. If SAARC is to be effective in dealing with resource management, particularly water, it needs to ‘provide an effective arena for discussing, resolving, or averting regional conflicts relating to environmental change’ (Glantz M H., 1992). As it currently stands it explicitly does not provide this opportunity for discussion and so, in the case of SAARC, ‘the problem is not one of resource scarcity, but of institutions that are inadequate to cope with the new situation of resource scarcity’ (Glantz M H., 1992). Whilst SAARC refrains from allowing bilateral issues to be discussed and resolved at its forums, it is unlikely that meaningful action will take place in terms of environmental problems because the states of SAARC will not cooperate with each other whilst their conflicts remain unresolved.

            South Asia is a region of particular concern because it is at an unusually high risk of severe weather events and drought. Although it is not one of the leading contributors to climate change in terms of greenhouse gas emissions, SAARC is a region that will bear the full brunt of the consequences of climate change, more so than other regions. It is because of this significant threat to droughts, floods and severe weather events that meaningful action is of the utmost importance to the SAARC nations. According to the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, ‘South Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world due to climate change’ (Dinda S, 2014). This susceptibility to environmental degradation is particularly pronounced in Bangladesh, where ‘almost the entire country is less than 10m above sea level and on a flat plane (Ray K et al., 2015). This means that large parts of Bangladesh are at an extreme risk of being flooded by rising sea levels and extensively damaged by severe thunderstorms that already ‘frequently occur in Bangladesh’ and will likely increase in ferociousness and frequency ‘causing deaths and damage to property every year’ (Ray K et al. 2015). As the low lying plains in Bangladesh become inundated by rising sea levels, millions of climate refugees will have to flee Bangladesh to seek refuge on higher ground. This presents an enormous and complex problem for the SAARC to deal with, because these refugees will want to stay within the region. The challenge for SAARC is to identify a multilateral solution for this very real problem where they can provide safety and security for the inhabitants of all SAARC states. However, as is demonstrated in the film ‘The Age of Consequence’, India has erected a fence around the entire perimeter of the India-Bangladesh border. Bangladesh, which shares no borders with any other country, is hemmed in by India to the sea. This quasi-conflict between India and Bangladesh is deemed a bilateral matter and as such, SAARC does not have the capability, or the willingness, to intervene. This needs to change to allow SAARC to be a platform for nations to resolve their conflicts and disputes before they worsen. The solutions to these problems are not for any one state to solve, but for the entire region to work together to solve these problems because ‘the weather knows no political boundaries’ (Sarkar A et al., 2014). As sea levels rise and these millions of Bangladeshi people are displaced from their homes, the tensions between India and Bangladesh will rise and it is likely that conflicts will occur between the states, which would make it near impossible for SAARC to act as an effective organisation for action on climate change. To prevent this, SAARC must become a more powerful institution, with the ability to discuss bilateral affairs and resolve conflicts. This will lead to a more cohesive organisation that is better equipped to deal with the challenges of environmental change.

The SAARC has at times come together to discuss less controversial problems and has been an effective tool for cooperation for the states in South Asia. In 2012, the SAARC Disaster Management Centre in India ‘organised a three-day workshop in Islamabad’ where delegates of the different states worked on the theme of ‘Flood management in South Asia’ (Usmani F, 2016). In this workshop they were looking specifically at areas like Sri Lanka, where ‘floods occur at regular intervals’ and ‘non-structural flood mitigation methods’ (Usmani F, 2016) are relatively poor. The outcome of this workshop was that areas such as Sri Lanka should invest in an ‘Integrated Food Alert and Global Flood Alert System’, one which many developed countries have ‘successfully deployed… to avoid human casualties and mitigate physical losses’ (Usmani F, 2016). This would allow Sri Lanka to minimise the damage caused during floods and enable them to ‘utilise [the] flood water by storing it in dams and reservoirs’. In Pakistan where water is scarce the SAARC member states attended a meeting titled ‘Pakistan Bioremediation Model, Prospects and Replication in SAARC Countries’. The member states of SAARC have shown inclination to use ‘bioremediation technology’ that will ‘utilise the sewerage water of their respective countries for irrigation purposes’, helping each state and the region to alleviate the severity of ‘future water scarcity challenges’ (Editor, 2015). The stark difference between the two examples of SAARC member states working cohesively on a regional problem is clear. Addressing frequent flooding in Sri Lanka and the regions northeast while also working to cope with the water scarcity and drought occurring in the region’s northwest. This juxtaposition highlights the complexity of the problem, as diversity of the environment within the region is extreme, and as such, one solution will not work for all member states. So far, all of the work that has been done in the SAARC region has just looked at ‘case studies’ (Sarkar A et al., 2014) in isolation, a small, specific area within the South Asia region. The extreme variability of climate and weather in South Asia means that SAARC needs to address the problem more holistically, and understand that each of these climate systems are linked. High temperatures and severe droughts in the region’s northwest can lead to more severe monsoons and thunderstorms in the region’s northeast. For SAARC to most effectively mitigate and adapt to climate and environmental change, all member states must use a systems thinking approach to identify solutions to the problems of water scarcity, soil degradation, flooding, rising sea levels, catastrophic weather events, disaster management in urban areas and many other environmental changes, and understand how these events are interrelated. Failure to take this systems-thinking approach, and the SAARC member states will be inadequately prepared for the consequences of these events, such as mass migration, food scarcity and regional conflicts. Each of these problems affects the others. India cannot fence Bangladesh off from the rest of the region and hope the problem goes away. SAARC has a significant role to play in the future of the South Asian region, it must be able to work multilaterally, using a systems-thinking approach, with the full cooperation of the member states, to successfully adapt to and mitigate climate change.

The coming decades will be a period of widespread and potentially calamitous environmental change in the South Asian region. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is in a unique position to be a major actor in addressing these very real and complex environmental problems facing the region. While the majority of the discourse relating to climate change has been on a global scale, it is on a regional level where the effects of climate change will be most pronounced, particularly in South Asia, which is one of the most vulnerable regions in the world to the effects of climate change. SAARC must play a greater role than it currently does in helping to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change. At the present, it is unable to do this because its power is limited in dealing with bilateral conflicts in the region. SAARC must be a forum where these conflicts can be resolved and the member states can cooperate in the greater challenges that face them. The variability of the climate in South Asia means that SAARC must look at the region as a whole, and identify what actions must be taken and what effects these actions will have on the states and their inhabitants. If SAARC cannot properly implement a greater culture of cooperation between the member states, then it will be inadequately prepared to deal with the real problems of water scarcity, environmental degradation, floods and rising sea levels that threaten the region. SAARC has a significant role to play in South Asia in mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change in the region. Whether it is capable of playing that role remains to be seen.   

  

References:

Dinda S, 2014, Climate Change: An Emerging Trade Opportunity in South Asia, South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, Vol. 3, (Issue 2), Pages 221-239

Editor, 2017, SAARC Represents Unity in Diversity, Southasia, Vol. 21, (Issue 6), Pages 22-23

Editor, (2015 Aug 11), SAARC Members Show Interest in Water Treatment Technology, Daily Times, file:///Users/user/Downloads/ProQuestDocuments-2018-04-25.pdf

Glantz M H., 1992, The Role of Regional Organisations in the Context of Climate Change, Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg

Majid A, (2017), Indus Water Treaty: An Impediment to the Indian Hydro-Hegemony, Denver Journal of International Law and Policy, Vol. 46, (Issue 1), Pages 45-71

Majid A, 2017, Pakistan-India Rivalry Hampering the SAARC to Become a Worthwhile Forum, Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, Vol. 54, (Issue 2), Pages 1-14

Ray K et al., 2015, High-Impact Weather Events over the SAARC Region, Springer, Switzerland

Sarkar A et al., 2014, The SAARC Storm: A Coordinated Field Experiment on Severe Thunderstorm Observations and Regional Modelling over the South Asia Region, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Vol. 95, (Issue 4), Pages 603-617

Usmani F, 2016, Water Hazards, Southasia; Karachi, Vol. 20, (Issue 12), Pages 56-57