Issue brief published by the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), January 2025.
The Tibetan Plateau covers approximately 2 percent of the planet, the size of Western Europe, with more than half of the area over 4000 m above sea level. It is the highest and most extensive highland in the world, with as many as 46,000 glaciers, making it the third-largest ice mass in the world. This brief aims to identify the importance of the Himalayan glaciers and the potential threat to the fragile mountain ecosystem in the Tibetan region including anthropogenic factors. It also delves into the geopolitics of ecology in the plateau and explores the critical role that international climate forums can play in voicing the region’s role in preserving the global climate system.
The Tibetan Plateau is often called the Third Pole, outside the Artic and Antartica polar regions. It exerts profound thermal and dynamical influences on regional and global climate. The Himalayan glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau are a foundational element for the ecological balance in the region. It provides fresh water for over two billion people across Asia. Nine river basins are fed by the glaciers, which include the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Salween, and Yangtse, supporting thousands of communities, villages, and cities across the South Asian and Southeast Asian region. The Tibet region is, thus, a critical resource to some of the world’s most densely populated nations.
However, the turn of the century has witnessed massive loss to the cryosphere across the region and the entire mountain ecology. This is in the form of glacier retreat, snow melt, and permafrost degradation to an unprecedented level, leading to a water crisis across the region. The crisis-like situation on the Tibetan Plateau has been evolving for decades and experts warn that 66 percent of the glaciers are in danger of melting by 2050.
Anthropogenic factors have singlehandedly sped up the process of degradation and destruction. Added to this are geopolitical factors, including political opportunism. The ripple effect on climate security has been water supply challenges faced by millions of people, creating climate refugees (90 percent of the world’s refugees originate from countries that are already impacted by the climate emergency). Climate meltdown in the Tibet has also increased the likelihood of floods, decreased water supply in the dry season, warmer temperatures, erratic climatic patterns and monsoons. Additionally, this threatens the entire water cycle in the northern hemisphere and life and property particularly as rising sea levels threaten coastal communities. This could exacerbate existing border disputes between countries in the region that are conflicting due to food insecurity, uncheckered urbanization, and competition over scarce resources. Worsening heatwaves in Europe and north-east Asia are also potentially linked to thinner snow cover on the Tibetan Plateau, highlighting the plateau’s key role in global weather systems.
Tibet is a critical ecosystem that sits on the largest permafrost area outside the Arctic and Antarctic regions. Its vast swathes of grassland are highly effective carbon sinks, but ice thawing could release large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 30 times more potent than CO2. The meltdown at the Third Pole needs urgent action in climate talks, agendas and actions. The Tibetan Plateau needs protection, not just for Tibetans but for the environmental health and sustainability of the entire world.
These are extracts from an issue brief written by Varuna Shankar, January 2025. To read the full brief, follow the link here.