Tibetans come to climate talks to plead for action

Tuesday, December 08, 2009

AFP
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Tibet stores more freshwater in the form of glaciers than any region on Earth except the North and South poles

COPENHAGEN — An unofficial delegation of Tibetans, the first to attend UN climate talks, said Tuesday that global warming and China's environmental policies threatened Himalayan glaciers providing water to more than a billion Asians.

Tibet, the world?s largest and highest plateau, is often called the "third pole" because it stores more freshwater in the form of glaciers than any region on Earth except the North and South poles.

The region is warming at twice the global average, leading to accelerated melting of tens of thousands of glaciers that feed seven major rivers flowing through India, Bangladesh, Southeast Asia and China.

Members of the informal delegation also said the Chinese government was damming and diverting Tibet's rivers in an attempt to solve China's own water crisis.

"Left unchecked, China?s policies on the Tibetan Plateau are laying the groundwork for a climate crisis as large and consequential as sea-level rise and melting polar ice sheets," said Tenzin Dhardon Sharling, of the Tibetan Women?s Association.

Giving native Tibetans a greater role in the management of land and water resources "represents the best chance of conserving the fragile high-altitude ecosystem that is of vital importance not only to Tibetans but also to China and the rest of the world," she said in a statement.

She also called for an independent scientific assessment of Tibet's ecosystem and current land-use policy.

China has ruled Tibet since 1951, after sending in troops into the Himalayan region the previous year, and Beijing has long maintained that its rule ended a Buddhist theocracy that enslaved all but the religious elite.

Following an aborted uprising in 1959, Tibet's highest religious authority, the Dalai Lama, fled and has been living in exile in India since.