Need for environmental cooperation in South Asia

There is ample room for external actors to promote environmental diplomacy in South Asia

Climate change is growing in severity. The varied implications of climate change are no longer the subject of hypothetical debate but are instead an evident reality. Besides the need to mitigate further climate change, it is necessary to build resilience to contend with the already unfolding impacts of climate change. Nowhere is the need to address climate change more urgent than in South Asia.

South Asia is a major hotspot for climate induced stresses, and it is home to a quarter of the world’s population, residing in states with lingering animosity, which will be further tested due to climate impacts. Countries in the region are trying to contend with climate change in their own borders with varying degrees of resolve, but there is ample room for external actors to promote environmental diplomacy between states in the wider region.

The current US government hosted a summit in DC this past year, which invited leaders of four South Asian countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives) to come together and discuss with the international community means to cooperate and contend with climate threats. Pakistan was, however, added only to the list of invitees only for a breakout session, and that too as an after-thought. Why Pakistan was sidelined from the Biden climate summit has been the cause of much speculation given that Pakistan is ranked as the eighth most vulnerable country due to climate threats according to the latest Global Climate Risk Index ranking.

Pakistan’s involvement in Biden’s climate summit may have provided the US an opportunity to not only support Pakistan’s domestic attempts to contend with climate change but to also identify means to increase regional cooperation to address trans-border water management between upper riparian China, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Pakistan.

Afghanistan was not included in the Biden climate summit either, presumably because the US realised that the Ashraf Ghani government would not remain in power much longer after the withdrawal of American forces. Yet, climate change is a major problem for Afghanistan as well. Despite all the money spent on the country over the past two decades, Afghanistan still has no water treaty with any of its neighbouring states, including with Pakistan, which can become an increasing source of contention as droughts and trans-border river water supplies become increasing stressed. India worked with the former Afghan government to build a dam on the Kabul river which snakes through Afghanistan and northern areas of Pakistan, but this project became a cause of suspicion for Pakistan. While the international community is reluctant to engage with the Taliban, focused project assistance and regional environmental dialogue can be pursued through various UN agencies, such as the Global Environmental Facility, which can help address Afghanistan’s severe water shortages being exacerbated by a lingering drought.

At the broader level, regional mechanisms need reinvigoration. The South Asia Cooperative Environment Program (SACEP) was created in the early 1980s, and is based in Colombo, but this organisation remains underfunded and unutilised. Yet, SACEP provides a readily available mechanism for the region to contend with environmental challenges if donors can impress upon regional states the need to work and cooperate via this mechanism, and even provide conditional funds contingent on such cooperation. Relevant UN agencies can also do more to engage all regional South Asian countries to jointly contend with the challenge of water management, and other common problems, such as air pollution.

Unless climate change compels regional states to begin cooperating on issues of trans-border concern, the emergent climate induced stresses will readily become ‘threat multipliers’, which will not bode well for a region already prone to lingering animosities and mutual suspicion.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28^th, 2022.

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