{"id":20009742,"date":"2015-01-23T11:03:25","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T05:33:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=9742"},"modified":"2021-05-24T15:05:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T09:35:54","slug":"scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The eight countries in South Asia that comprise the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) have a collective population of over a billion and a half people, many of whom live in some of the ecosystems that are most vulnerable to climate change impacts such low lying deltas of the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Indus rivers,\u00a0high mountains of the Hindu Kush Himalayas and islands such as Maldives and Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n

At the same time the region collectively has a significant (albeit not huge) and growing carbon footprint.<\/p>\n

These collective, many of them transboundary, problems have been known for some time and the benefits of closer cooperation in the region \u2013 especially on management of cross country river basins and possible cross country hydro energy sharing \u2013 have been known. But even win-win options have failed to materialise.<\/p>\n

There is an obvious political difficulty of suspicion and lack of trust amongst some key countries that need to be overcome.<\/p>\n

I was recently invited to participate in a South Asia Regional Science Policy Dialogue in the beautiful country of Bhutan organised by the Asia Pacific Network<\/a> based in Japan.<\/p>\n

The three day workshop with about 30 scientists, policy makers and some media focused on three topics, namely food security, water security and low carbon development.<\/p>\n

There was a rich set of discussions which will be brought out as a report soon. Here I am sharing some personal reflections based on the discussions in Bhutan.<\/p>\n

First, I think we need to change the perception and hence the narrative of climate change in South Asia from no longer seeing climate change as just a problem but as a significant opportunity to break out of past sterile non-cooperation for the benefit of the people of all the countries in the region. We must think of climate change as such an overwhelming problem facing all of us that we should stop our bickering and work together to fight the common enemy.<\/p>\n

Second, the triple nexus of food security, water security and energy security have both domestic and cross-country dimensions which, if tackled together at a regional level, will provide domestic benefits to each country.<\/p>\n

These win-win programmes for energy and water cooperation are well known. We need to find the political will to make them happen.<\/p>\n

Third, the scientific community in the region has no problem working with one another and there is sufficient scientific capacity in each country that, if combined, can help come up with solutions to the problems which could then be shared with national policymakers.<\/p>\n

The scientific community has a comparative advantage in being able to collaborate more effectively than governments\u00a0and also have the tools and methods to bring cutting edge solutions that would not only be applicable to South Asia but also to the rest of the world.<\/p>\n

Finally, on the energy front the region has the potential to leapfrog conventional fossil fuel energy sources to cleaner renewable sources\u00a0including hydro, solar and wind energy.<\/p>\n

It is admittedly a major task which will take years to succeed. However, a concerted\u00a0regional set\u00a0of collaborative research projects between key universities and research institutes over next three to five years would be worth a shot.<\/p>\n

The people of the South Asian countries \u2013 Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka \u2013 can turn the problem of climate change into a solution towards a sustainable development pathway for the individual countries as well as the region collectively. The scientific community can take the lead in charting that course.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20000213,"featured_media":20014532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[761],"tags":[513,20000628],"hashtags":[],"country":[20000116,20027489,20000111,50040752,20000113,20000112,50040714],"class_list":["post-20009742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-climate","tag-carbon-emissions","tag-science","country-bangladesh","country-bhutan","country-india","country-maldives","country-nepal","country-pakistan","country-sri-lanka"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nScientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Dialogue Earth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"409\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Saleemul Huq\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Saleemul Huq\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a16ae66efcfa73d94cae2a6983d93e\"},\"headline\":\"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\"},\"wordCount\":593,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Carbon emissions\",\"Science\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Climate\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\",\"name\":\"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia | Dialogue Earth\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00\",\"description\":\"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg\",\"width\":680,\"height\":409,\"caption\":\"A rural woman-turned solar engineer making a solar cooker to promote cooking with clean fuel (Image by Knut Erik-Helle)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\",\"name\":\"Dialogue Earth\",\"description\":\"Global climate and environment news\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization\",\"name\":\"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png\",\"width\":256,\"height\":256,\"caption\":\"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/DialogueEarth_\",\"\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DialogueEarth.English\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dialogue.earth\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dialogueearth\/\"],\"publishingPrinciples\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/about\/\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a16ae66efcfa73d94cae2a6983d93e\",\"name\":\"Saleemul Huq\",\"description\":\"Professor Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh and is an expert on the links between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. He was the lead author of the chapter on adaptation and sustainable development in the third IPCC assessment report. He also teaches at the Independent University, Bangladesh and is chair of the Expert Advisory Group for the Climate Vulnerable Forum.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/saleemul-huq\/\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/saleemul-huq\/\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia | Dialogue Earth","description":"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia","og_description":"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region","og_url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/","og_site_name":"Dialogue Earth","article_published_time":"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":680,"height":409,"url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Saleemul Huq","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/"},"author":{"name":"Saleemul Huq","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a16ae66efcfa73d94cae2a6983d93e"},"headline":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia","datePublished":"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/"},"wordCount":593,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg","keywords":["Carbon emissions","Science"],"articleSection":["Climate"],"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/","name":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia | Dialogue Earth","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg","datePublished":"2015-01-23T05:33:25+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-24T09:35:54+00:00","description":"Scientists can take a lead role and cooperate across national borders to find development pathways that will benefit every country in the region","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/woman-making-solar-cooker.jpg","width":680,"height":409,"caption":"A rural woman-turned solar engineer making a solar cooker to promote cooking with clean fuel (Image by Knut Erik-Helle)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/climate\/scientists-should-lead-climate-change-cooperation-in-south-asia\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Scientists should lead climate change cooperation in South Asia"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#website","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/","name":"Dialogue Earth","description":"Global climate and environment news","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#organization","name":"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Dialogue-Earth-Symbol-Logo_Black-Text.png","width":256,"height":256,"caption":"\u5bf9\u8bdd\u5730\u7403"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/twitter.com\/DialogueEarth_","","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/DialogueEarth.English","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/dialogue.earth\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dialogueearth\/"],"publishingPrinciples":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/about\/"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/d4a16ae66efcfa73d94cae2a6983d93e","name":"Saleemul Huq","description":"Professor Saleemul Huq is the director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh and is an expert on the links between climate change and sustainable development, particularly from the perspective of developing countries. He was the lead author of the chapter on adaptation and sustainable development in the third IPCC assessment report. He also teaches at the Independent University, Bangladesh and is chair of the Expert Advisory Group for the Climate Vulnerable Forum.","url":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/saleemul-huq\/","sameAs":["https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/author\/saleemul-huq\/"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20009742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20000213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20009742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20009742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20014532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20009742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20009742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20009742"},{"taxonomy":"hashtags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtags?post=20009742"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=20009742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}