Cross-border Environmentalism

What is the issue?

Emerging environmental concerns make cross-border environmentalism crucial for South Asia.
It is high time that India recognises this and takes the lead.

What is the emerging threat?

Climate change is introducing massive disturbances to South Asia.
This is most notably from the rise of sea levels.
The entire Indian Ocean coastline will be affected.
But the hardest hit will be the densely populated deltas.
They include places where the Indus, Irrawaddy and Ganga-Brahmaputra meet the sea.
The distress is paramount in the northern half of the Indian subcontinent.
It covers areas from the Brahmaputra basin to the Indus-Ganga plain.

What are the environmental concerns?

Water - The subcontinent is running out of water resource.
This is due to the demands of industrialisation and urbanisation.
It is also due to continuation of colonial model of irrigation based on flooding the fields.
Rivers - The economic and demographic forces are arrayed against the rivers and their right-of-way.
E.g. Ganga (Uttarakhand), Teesta (Sikkim) have been converted into dry boulder tracts by ‘cascades’ of run-of-river hydroelectric schemes.
The tributaries of the Indus were ‘done in’ decades ago through water diversion.
Natural drainage - Everywhere, natural drainage is destroyed.
Highways and railway tracks are elevated above the flood line, and bunds encircling towns and cities.
Reduced flows and urban/industrial effluents have converted great rivers into sewers.
Rivers are made to carry hundreds of tonnes of plastics daily into the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.
Climate refugees - The climate change discourse has not evolved enough to address this.
Tens of millions of ‘climate refugees’ could en masse move inland.
They may be forced to cross national boundaries in the search for survival.
E.g. the Farakka Barrage affected the livelihoods in downstream Bangladesh, causing the flood of ‘undocumented aliens’ in India.
Glaciers - The retreat of the Himalayan glaciers is jeopardising the perennial nature of our rivers.

The 'atmospheric brown cloud' is said to be the reason for excessive melting of snows in the central Himalaya.
The icefalls of the Himalaya could soon transform into waterfalls.

What are the policy shortfalls?

Participation - The subcontinental environmental realities demand civic participation.
But despite being a vast democracy, the Indian state neglects this factor.
Efforts at preserving the forests and landscapes are mostly taken up by the indigenous communities.
The urban middle class is not visible in environmentalism, other than in ‘beautification projects’.
Governance - The Environment Ministry is invariably the least empowered in the major countries of South Asia.
It falls short of coordinating the ecological response.

Why is India's role crucial?

Wildlife, disease vectors, aerosols and river flows do not respect national boundaries.
The environmental trends must be discussed at the regional inter-country level.
But South Asian societies are apart, when they should actually be joining hands on common ground.
India is the largest nation-state of the region, and the biggest polluter.
Also, its population is the most vulnerable.
Given these, India should take the lead role in cross border environmentalism.

Source: The Hindu

Quick Fact

Atmospheric brown cloud

This cloud is made up of ‘black carbon’ containing soot and smog.
It is the result of stubble burning, wood fires, smokestacks and fossil fuel exhaust.
Dust kicked up by winter agriculture, vehicles and wind are sources as well.
This high altitude haze covers the Indo-Gangetic plains for much of the dry season.
It penetrates deep into the high valleys.
It rises up over the plains and some of it settles on Himalayan snow and ice.
They absorb the heat and melt much faster.