For Immediate Release
22 October 2021
Contacts:
Tenzin Passang [Tibetan, Hindi and English] +91 9667145772 and tenpassang@studentsforfreetibet.org
Tenzin Tashi [Tibetan and English] +91 88005 34847 and tibetparty4@gmail.com
Tibetans in India joining with Global Climate Strikes with the message;
Tibet’s Climate Crisis
Climate Action Now!
Dharamshala, Friday, 22 October: Tibetans and supporters across the world are joining the Global Climate Strikes today, to raise awareness of the Climate Crisis in Tibet ahead of the COP26 in Glasgow, UK from 31st October- 12 November 2021.
Even with Paris Agreement’s decision to stop the world’s average temperature from rising more than 2° C or ideally 1.5°C, Tibet, an area roughly the size of western Europe, rising in the heart of Asia at an altitude of 4000 meters above sea level, is heating twice faster than the global average and is undergoing catastrophic changes. The impacts, including rising temperatures, changing precipitation patterns and 8 billion tonnes of ice being lost each year from Tibet’s glaciers, directly affect not only Tibetans, but the water security of 1.5 billion people downstream.
Thus, we demand of COP26 and China:
· The COP26 should recognize the global ecological significance of the Tibetan Plateau, making it central to any discussion on global climate change.
· That all Tibetans, and especially Tibet’s more than two million nomads, have a fundamental human right to choose life and livelihood on the grasslands, and to cultural and livelihood self-determination in deciding how best to adapt to climate change.
· That all local and regional stakeholders, in Tibet and downstream, work as full partners in the creation of transparent, inclusive and durable local and trans-boundary governance institutions and processes to guide mitigation of and adaptation to the effects of climate change across the Tibetan Plateau.
“The upcoming COP26 conference on climate change in Glasgow will bring together over 190 countries to submit their national plans to cut emissions and negotiate terms of implementing the 2015 Paris Agreement to limit 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels”, said Lobsang Yangtso of International Tibet Network. “Against this international setting, it is essential that Tibetans join this critical conversation in finding solutions. Motions to the long-term restoration, management and conservation of the Tibetan Plateau”.
Under China’s rule, Tibetan voices have been brutally suppressed. China’s occupation prevents Tibetans in Tibet from being part of the global climate change conversation, but it is vital that they are part of the solution. Moreover, there must be an immediate halt to all extractive and deleterious land uses that threaten the Tibetan Plateau’s fragile and unique ecosystems and ecosystem services, especially water resources.
“The Climate Crisis in Tibet is not just a regional but a global issue, which is why Tibetans and Tibet supporters around the world are taking to the streets in support of the Global Climate Strikes”, said Wangmo of Tibetan Women’s Association. “China 2’s model of development has failed to understand Tibet. The government’s inability to see through its mistakes, Tibet’s pasts is a reflection of how its policies lack honesty, integrity and respect towards listening and including Tibetan perspectives in the top-down policies of development that it has imposed.”
Organised by Clean Upper Dharamsala Programme, Gu Chu Sum Movement Association of Tibet, National Democratic Party of Tibet, Students for a Free Tibet-India, Tibetan Women’s Association and facilitated by International Tibet Network.
