BILAL HUSSAIN
Climate change is no longer a thing of the distant future – the Kashmir valley has already been witness to its horrifying presence. According to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), approximately 7% of the ice of the Himalayan glaciers is melting away every year, as a result of which they may completely disappear as early as 2030.
The Himalayan glaciers feed six major rivers — Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, Huang-Ho, and Yangtze-Kiang — which supply water to 2 billion Asians as they run through Pakistan, India, Tibet, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Ganges alone supplies a population of over 407 million as it flows through Northern India and Bangladesh.[i]
Kashmir is located on the western half of the Himalayan Mountain Range. It is nestled between China on the east, India on the south, Pakistan to the west and shares a short border with Afghanistan to the north. The terrain is composed mainly of mountains and plateaus, which results most of the population concentrating in the lush Vale of Kashmir. The north and west portions of Kashmir (known as the Northern Areas) are currently governed by Pakistan, while India governs the southern (Jammu and Kashmir) and China the easternmost region (Aksai Chin)[ii]. A region as geologically and climactically fragile as Kashmir is more vulnerable by its nature to threats posed by climate change, but as there is no single political system that exists here, environmental matters are treated with little concern. Even in pockets of Kashmir that do maintain a cohesive government, politicians and policy-makers are engulfed with the political turbulences of the region.
Take the case of the Srinagar — summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir — which comprises of 1.4 million (unofficial estimates) souls at present. The water footprint of the city over the years has increased to a greater extent, which is hardly a sign of good ecological health for the valley. The population of the city has increased from 4.57 lakhs in 1971 to 6.06 lakhs in 1981 and 11.10 lakhs in 2001 and is expected to increase to 23.50 lakhs by 2021. The immense increase of Srinagar’s water footprint will eventually lead to low water availability in the streams, rivers, lakes and other water bodies. This increase can be attributed due to many environmental factors. However, experts in the sector believe that the chief reason for it is climate change.
The Siachen glacier — known as third pole of earth — is melting at an unprecedented rate as it is already over-burdened by the demands of the militaries of India and Pakistan. The Himalayan glaciers are being affected because of the establishment of permanent cantonments on the glaciers, daily heavy air traffic to their camps, cutting and melting of glacial ice through application of chemicals, daily dumping of more than a ton of chemicals, metals, organic and human waste. All these factors are acting as catalysts for the rapid melting of glaciers.
Melting of glaciers — be it Siachen or any other — is not an issue confined to a particular region, as it causes the sea level rise which is the fundamental cause of triggering of cyclones and hurricanes, which may be said to pose the greatest threat to all people living along the coastal areas of the globe. After the recent devastating hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean that hit the USA, Mexico and Haiti, among other nations, scientists from those regions have been urging their governments to check the melting of glaciers worldwide.
According to the IPCC report, the sea-level has risen about 130 meters since the peak of the last ice age about 18,000 years ago. Most of this rise had occurred more than 6,000 years ago. From 3,000 years ago to the start of the 19th century the sea level was almost constant, rising at 0.1 to 0.2 millimeters per year. However, since 1993, studies indicate a rate of rise of 3.1 ± 0.7 millimeters per year. The report further states that the sea-level rise estimates from satellite altimetry since 1992 (about 2.8 millimeters per year) exceed those from tide gauges.
The over-two-decades’ long military presence in the most fragile zone in South Asia is not only causing Siachen to melt, but the health of other Himalayan glaciers is being badly affected as well. The governments of both India and Pakistan have failed to find an amicable solution to this great problem.[iii] Experts from both sides of LoC (Line of Control) of divided Kashmir have time and again urged that the Himalayan glaciers should be declared as world heritage and handed over to UNEP/UNESCO for their preservation in order to save the Kashmir Valley and, indeed, the whole globe from natural calamities.
Muneer Ahmad, of the National Geophysical Research Institute in Hyderabad, has said the nose of the Kolhai glacier in Kashmir, one of the largest glaciers in the Himalayas, had receded by almost 22 meters in 2007 while several smaller glaciers had disappeared completely. Ajit Tyagi, Director General of Indian Meteorological Department, has warned that the glaciers could disappear even sooner if global warming proceeds at its current rate.
Should glaciers disappear as quickly as feared then there would be serious repercussions; these glaciers (as already stated) form a constant reservoir that feeds the major rivers of South Asia. Without the glaciers the flow of these rivers would become seasonal, thus leaving the livelihoods and lives of tens of millions of people subject to the uncertainties, and extremes, of flood and drought, as the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report points out.
It is hardly difficult to believe that the rivers of Kashmir Valley have the potential to cause havoc in South Asian politics. Any great climate change in the near future could likely further aggravate the tension in the region particularly between India and Pakistan. The most effective response to this potential threat would be to ensure that the glaciers never melt at a greater rate.
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[i] Sources: IPCC and Institute for Public Policy Research and Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
[ii] “Kashmir” Encyclopedia Britannica 2007.
[iii] Melting Of Siachen Glacier And Military/civilian Mountaineering Campaign By Arshad H Abbasi Dated: Nov 03, 2008
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