Transboundary Cooperation Vital to Address Climate Change Impacts in Asia

There is a need for transboundary cooperation when dealing with climate change impacts because these can sweep across regions, irrespective of national boundaries.

Also, Asia as a continent is transboundary, sharing the benefits from its natural resources, ecosystems, economic and social trades, human movement, and migration.

Teleconnection is mentioned in the paper as a factor or phenomenon shared between regions.

A study defines it as referring to climate variability links between non-contiguous geographic regions (Science Direct, 2015).

Another scientific site describes it as ‘changes in the atmosphere in one place can affect the weather over 1000 miles away. One example is the El Nino phenomenon (Scied. UCAR, 2008).

The paper “Transboundary Impacts of Climate Change in Asia: Making a Case for Regional Adaptation Planning and Cooperation” examines Asia’s transboundary nature and climate change’s impacts.

The paper discussed the following points:

• Climate change impacts across borders: biophysical, such as transboundary rivers, water bodies, glaciers, wetlands, forests and migratory species; trade; people; and finance.
• Alterations in temperature, air currents, ocean systems, and hydrological flows can cause large-scale disasters across regions.
• Climate change impacts teleconnection, which can result in serious climate threats if individual countries do not understand and address it efficiently.
• There is insufficient knowledge of climate impacts on transboundary natural resources and teleconnection.
• The National Adaptation Planning (NAP) processes of each country are unaware of climate change impacts on subregional and regional teleconnections, which means there is an insufficiency of adaptation measures.
• There are severe gaps in the governance of shared resources and a lack of estimates on the extent to which countries are benefitting from these shared resources.

The paper also discussed the Benefits of Transboundary cooperation in dealing with climate change:

• Opportunities to pool expertise, knowledge, and experiences. Countries benefit from resource-sharing and a more defined collaboration framework for countries facing similar challenges.
• Minimizing trade-offs from individual country’s efforts to deal with climate change
• Pool financial and technical resources
• Access to international funding and technical resources in a more coordinated manner
• Complement the Paris Agreement through a joint regional stocktaking process.

Challenges to transboundary cooperation among Asian countries

The following are the challenges that were discussed in the paper:

• There are no formal agreements on mechanisms for regional collaboration for climate change adaptation, although the need is getting stronger.
• Differences in national priorities and geopolitical interests in the region.
• Climate change must be addressed as a regional issue while national adaptation planning (NAP) is still transitioning.

Some positive developments in Asia’s transboundary cooperation

Despite the challenges, positive results are going on that foster transboundary collaboration in Asia.

For instance, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Pakistan, and Nepal have a bilateral agreement on water resources problems. China, Nepal, and India have also recognized the need for coordinated risk management.

Regional organizations like the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) have identified six transboundary landscapes bordering the Himalayan ranges, stretching as far as the northern border of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. This program aims to enhance these regions’ socio-ecological resilience to environmental change.

What are the gaps that need to be addressed?

The paper has identified some gaps that need to be addressed in strengthening existing and emerging transboundary agreements between Asia,

• There is a need for transboundary cooperation in the Himalayan region, particularly in the sharing of scientific knowledge, information, and technology.
• The changing topology of extreme events that are increasingly happening across borders and disasters, especially in upstream and downstream directions, must be addressed.
• There are long-term issues with ‘shifting’ or unstable resources, like water, agriculture, and biodiversity. An option is to transfer technologies and innovations to improve the management of resources, such as water and climate resistance.
• Social concerns like the migration of people affected by climate change are looking for opportunities in another region.
• A regional conflict mechanism is needed to avoid possible conflicts over land and resources when they happen.

Climate change actions and reflections

Climate change is a global phenomenon that affects everyone. The most vulnerable are those countries or areas that are more exposed to the impacts of sea-level rises, such as those living along the coasts, delta regions, and low-lying regions. Also, developing countries with inadequate mitigation and adaptation measures will suffer.

The Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019 has identified the Asia-Pacific region as facing a daunting spectrum of natural hazards and disasters, both rapid and slow-onset climate change consequences.

A call for urgent action to prepare and mitigate climate change has never been prevalent and enthusiastic from environmentalists and global leaders alike.

International funding institutions are also stepping up to meet the challenge, extending funding and support to the most vulnerable countries to climate change.

These ongoing developments can complement the transboundary cooperation in Asia and promote unity among the regions facing common challenges and threats.  

The entire report can be read by clicking on the image below:

PHOTO CREDIT: The featured image used in this post is a composite photo of the following:

Image by Quang Nguyen Vinh from Pixabay

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