India inks climate change adaptation deal with neighbours

Hindustan Times: Realising that consequences of climate change in Himalayas can no longer be ignored, India along with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh has signed a declaration for wide-ranging collaboration on energy, water, food and biodiversity issues to addresss the threat to their ecosystem.

Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading conservation organisation, said in a statement that the deal signed at Bhutanese capital Thimphu could lead the way to similar climate adaptation plans being implemented to cover other threatened ecosystems. "The success of our initiative will not only have direct and immediate benefits for our own people, but we could be setting a worthy precedent for other countries that share similar conditions," Bhutan's Prime Minister Lyonchhoen Jigmi Y Thinley was quoted as saying in the statement.

The four nations reached the pact at the two-day "Climate Summit for a Living Himalayas" against the backdrop of melting glaciers, erratic weather conditions, changing rainfall patterns and increasing temperatures impacting the people and wildlife of the region.

Environment Secretary T Chatterjee represented India at the summit attended by high-level government officials, NGOs, leaders of civil society, and youth ambassadors from the four Eastern Himalayan nations. "The four nations broadly agreed to combine powers to increase access to 'affordable and reliable' clean energy resources and technology through a regional knowledge sharing mechanism....

Nanga Parbat from the air: Diamir (west) face. In the background left of Nanga Parbat some peaks of the Karakorams: Saltoro Kangri, K6, Sherpi Kangri(?) and Ghent (the snow-covered double-summit) (right to left). Shot by Guilhem Vellut (*_*), Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license