India and China’s much-publicised agreement last week claims to strengthen cooperation on shared rivers, supposedly allaying Indian fears over new dams.
Under the deal, China has also agreed to extend the flood data they provide to India on the Brahmaputra – the most controversial of the Himalayan rivers flowing between India and China – from May to October instead of June to October in the previous agreements.
From its source in Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Zangbo, the Brahmaputra meanders 2,900 kilometres and passes through India and Bangladesh. With devastating annual floods and potentially hazardous hydroelectricity projects in the pipeline, improved cross-border cooperation is urgently needed.
China’s plans to construct more dams on the Brahmaputra in Tibet have caused increasing alarm in India about the downstream impacts. The most contentious project is a massive 48,000-megawatt dam slated for the “great bend” in China, before the river swings round into India (over twice the size of the Three Gorges dam).
China’s repeated assurances that the projects will not reduce water flow in the Brahmaputra, as they are run-of-the-river hydropower projects not designed to hold water, have failed to quell fears.
Hopes that the new agreement will mark a turning point in relations on water may be premature. Looking at the actual language of the most recent agreement, signed last week, there is no mention of dams, river projects or India’s water rights. What’s more, it transpires that India is paying China for the hydrological data and not making it publically available afterwards, according to the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP).
For the complete article, please see The Third Pole.
At a briefing ahead of the COP25, foreign minister Heiko Maas called for higher ambition for the European Union, which should act as a role-model to encourage other states to boost their commitments to climate action. He further reiterated the importance of supporting multilateralism and an international climate regime that is able to withstand setbacks, such as the US withdrawal of the Paris Agreement.
Climate change is increasingly challenging global security and undermining peacebuilding efforts. UN Environment and the European Union have joined forces to address these challenges. With the support of adelphi, they have developed a toolkit on ‘Addressing climate-fragility risks’. This toolkit facilitates the development and implementation of strategies, policies, and projects that seek to build resilience by linking climate change adaptation, peacebuilding, and sustainable livelihoods, focusing on the pilot countries Sudan and Nepal.
Nobody needs to be convinced that climate change affects our very existence and security. However, experts are interested to know how climate change affects security at a global level and what the EU can do in that regard. This was the main aim of the European Security and Defence College (ESDC) Climate Change and Security Course co-organised by the French Institute for Higher National Defence Studies (IHEDN) and adelphi, as part of the Climate Diplomacy initiative supported by the German Federal Foreign Office, which took place in Brussels from 21 to 23 October 2019.
The new study Shoring up Stability demonstrates, for the first time, how climate change interacts with conflict and exacerbates the humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad region. To launch the report and discuss its findings with local policy-makers, experts and practitioners, the German Embassy in Niger, adelphi and CNESS co-organised a launch event on 24 October in Niamey. Insights from Niger point to the importance of investing in governance rather than technical fixes.