"Why do you think Tibet matters when we discuss here in Durban on how to halt the negative impacts of Climate Change?"
This question was raised by Woebum Tenzin, a Tibetan women representing the group Tibet 3rd Pole at a side event that was hosted by the NGOs Society for Threatened Peoples Int'l and ECOTERRA Int'l., to a full room of concerned people, experts, officials and media participating at the tiresome United Nations climate change negotiations at the 17th Conference off the Parties (COP17) in Durban
"Because Tibet is the roof of the world, the Planet's 'Third Pole', home to around 46,000 glaciers, that are storing 40% of the world's freshwater," explained Mrs Woebum. "But Tibet is warming at least twice as fast as the rest of the world." she added Showing pictures of glaciers 20 years ago and today, Mrs Woebum informed the attentive audience that 20 percent of Tibetan glaciers have already retreated.
"If the current trends continue and governments don't start to take collective responsibility for all life on Earth, Tibet's glaciers might be gone within a decade. These glaciers feed the rivers that are the lifeblood of Asia, providing water for billions of people in ten nations downstream of Tibet." Mrs Woebum highlighted.
Tibet is virtually an island in the sky, so vast that it impacts global wind circulation, draws the Asian monsoons deep inland, and is even affecting storm tracks of the north Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.
China, since the 1960s, still occupies Tibet against the will of the peaceful Tibetan people, is aggressively blocking and damming the rivers of Tibet that flow into the neighbouring countries, and stirs heavy opposition from worried citizens and conscious government officials in the affected countries of the sub continent.
Sixty one dam projects are under construction, are in the planning stage or have already been completed by China on the Tibetan high plateau without ever having asked the Tibetans for their consent. Twenty one hydroelectric dam projects just along the Upper Mekong River are under construction, are planned or have already been built. Thirty six hydropower projects are targeting the Upper Yangtze River at the current date. Twenty four dams at the Upper Selween River.
"In addition, China is building countless smaller dams in order to create the energy that is needed for the construction of the mega-dams." said Payal Parekh Ph.D, an independent Energy and Climate researcher who informed the audience about the negative impacts of dams on climate change. 40% of the population of Tibet are livestock nomads, who China tries now to forcefully settle in shoddily constructed settlement schemes - disrupting their millennia-old sustainable lifestyle and economy and destroying their culture.
As climate change with ever accelerating trends continues to have seriously negative impacts on Tibet's fragile mountain ecosystem, the impact caused by global climate change plus the local ecosystem alterations due to these dam constructions will resonate far beyond the highland mountain plateau, changing the water supply for billions of people and altering the atmospheric circulation over half the planet. More than ever before, the need to save the Tibetan Plateau from ecological devastation is urgent, because it is not just a question of survival for the Tibetans themselves, but also for half of humanity.
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