07 June 2007 - Heiligendamm,
Germany — In the lead up to this year's
summit, leaked documents made it clear there
was a distinct split among the G8 on the
issue of climate change. After all, seven
of the member countries have committed to
the Kyoto Protocol's binding reductions
of greenhouse gas emissions - while the
US (far and away the worst offender) has
not.
Deal brokered
Traditionally, this sort of thing is smoothed
over beforehand. However, this time governments
kept fighting publicly until this afternoon.
In the end, the divisions got papered over
with rhetoric. Most likely the politicians
feel quite satisfied at having avoided a
public disagreement. But the differences
remain obvious for all to see. The final
document agreed by the G8 also contains
a promise that all leaders will "seriously
consider" the binding emission cuts
the EU and almost all G8 members have committed
to. In other words, Bush will watch, while
the rest of the world, hopefully, acts.
The deal is "clearly not enough to
prevent dangerous climate change" said
Daniel Mittler, climate policy advisor of
Greenpeace International at the summit.
"Governments failed to commit to what
science tells us is necessary here. They
must now urgently do so at the United Nations."
What these leaders, of the world's wealthiest
nations, fail to take into account is that
reducing CO2 emissions by 50 percent, compared
to 11000 levels, by 2050 is not a negotiable
diplomatic point - it is a physical reality.
And, as we’ve already learned from the last
15 years, voluntary measures simply don't
work.
Politics aside, the G8 are responsible
for over 80 percent of the climate change
we witness today, and still emit over 40
percent of all global emissions. They are
therefore morally bound to act first and
act firmly.
Silver lining in a cloudy sky
The isolation of the US on climate change
was at least further exposed through this
whole process - leaving the Bush Administration
scrambling for diversionary tactics.
Today's document also confirms that the
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate
Change is the best way forward, which sets
back Bush's plan for a US controlled parallel
process. This means, that the road is clear
for real negotiations on binding emission
cuts to start in earnest at the next climate
meeting in Bali in December this year.
Though as Greenpeace UK director John Sauven
pointed out, "Scientists tell us we
need to slash emissions over the next decade
if we're to have a chance of preventing
dangerous climate change. This document
acknowledges the seriousness of the situation
then ducks reality by offering weasel words
like 'seriously considering', as if this
was an after dinner discussion rather than
the most important issue facing the world."
Into the exclusion zone
Tens of thousands of people have been peacefully
protesting these past days, both at Heiligendamm
and at an alternative summit - trying to
get the message through to the G8 that the
time to act is now.
Yesterday, German police pre-emptively
boarded our ship, the Arctic Sunrise - even
though it was well outside the summit's
exclusion zone. The police came on without
a search warrant and confined the 24 crew
before seizing Greenpeace equipment including
engines from inflatables, making the boats
unusable, and the hull of a Greenpeace hot
air balloon.
This morning, 24 Greenpeace activists,
using 11 speedboats took the message "G8:
Act Now!" to the waters around the
beachfront summit hotel. They entered the
outer restricted area at 11am, informing
the police as they did so. They came in
from both east and west sides, entering
into the inner restricted zone 10 minutes
later.
Police boats ran over some of the Greenpeace
boats - injuring six activists and sending
several to the hospital. Fortunately, no
one suffered more than severe bruising.
The activists were trying to deliver a petition
calling for clear commitments on climate
change.
At last report, the boats and 19 activists
were in police custody.
The next major UN Climate Conference will
be in Bali, Indonesia, December 2007. Governments
there must commit to the reductions that
science requires, to stop catastrophic climate
change.
+ More
Expedition documents melting Himalayan
glaciers
G8 meets as glaciers melt on World Environment
Day
05 June 2007 - China — Glaciers in the
Himalayas provide the water source for one-sixth
of humanity. Now that water source is threatened
by climate change. As the temperature rises,
these reservoirs of ice disappear. Guanli
Wang, a journalist with China S&T, reports
back after taking part in an expedition
documenting how this is happening right
before our eyes.
Dubbed the 'Third Pole', for having the
largest concentration of glaciers outside
the polar caps, the Himalayas boast 11 peaks
over 8,000 metres (26,246 feet) and around
100 over 7,000 metres (22,966 feet).
Today is World Environment day, and this
year's UN designated theme is "melting
ice", making today sadly appropriate
for telling the story of Himalayan ice.
Scientists predict that 80 percent of these
glaciers will disappear within 30 years
if current warming rates are maintained.
The expedition
I was part of a Greenpeace team, which
left Beijing in late April to document glacial
retreat on the world's highest peak, Mount
Everest (Qomolangma). The plan was to gather
visual evidence of the retreat of the Rongbuk
Glacier, Everest’s main glacier, 5,800 metres
above sea level, to build awareness in China
of the mounting threat of climate change.
After a four-hour flight, we reached Lhasa,
"place of the gods " in Tibetan.
Our Tibetan guide Bianba Dunzhu greeted
us. Bianba, an instructor with the Tibet
Mountaineer Training School, has made it
to Everest’s summit twice and the world's
second highest peak, K2 (Mount Qogir), once.
"Although I am a mountain guide, I
dare not conquer Mount Everest too many
times. Human beings must respect the holy
mountains,” Bianba said, recalling the fate
of a Nepalese guide who had reached the
summit over a dozen times but died at the
prime of his life with no obvious cause
of death.
Mountainous rivers
With this reminder to respect the mountains
ringing in our ears, we set off from Lhasa,
via Shigatse, Tingri and Zaxizong, towards
Mount Everest. The expedition also aimed
to collect evidence of climate change impacts
on the region’s rivers. The Himalayas and
Qinghai-Tibet plateau are the source of
some of the world's major river systems:
the Indus, the Ganga-Brahmaputra, Mekong,
Yangtze and the Yellow. Almost a billion
people live in the watershed areas of these
great rivers in China, India, Nepal and
Bangladesh.
We saw our first river, the Lhasa River,
as we drove from the airport to downtown
Lhasa. We were immediately struck by the
large deposits of sand on both banks of
the river, an indication of the desertification
spreading throughout the region. The following
day, we crossed the Brahmaputra River. Once
famous for its abundant runoff, the flow
of the Brahmaputra is now much reduced,
with many shallow sections visible.
As we neared Everest, we saw the Rongbuk
River, formed by melt water from the Rongbuk
Glacier, the area’s largest. Forty years
ago the annual runoff of the Rongbuk was
around 100 million cubic metres. Now the
flow is greatly reduced due to the rapid
retreat of the Rongbuk Glacier.
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has a staggering
46,298 glaciers. However, recent surveys
via remote sensing and fieldwork have recorded
a 10 percent reduction in the last three
decades, from 48,860 square kilometres (18,865
sq miles) in the 1970s to 44,438 sq km (17,158
sq miles) today. The alarming acceleration
of the retreat is being attributed to increased
global warming.
At an altitude of 5,200m (17,060 ft), the
tiny village of Zaxizong stands at the entrance
of the Mount Everest Nature Reserve. A small,
nearly dry river runs past the village.
Renzeng, a 48-year-old farmer tells us that
generations of villagers have relied on
the river for crop irrigation and their
water supply. Renzeng adds, "Now, due
to lack of irrigation, the yield of highland
barley in our village is less than half
what it used to be".
Nearing Everest
Onward and upwards towards Mount Everest,
we stop at the Rongbuk Temple, at 5,030m
(16,503 ft), the highest temple in the world
and the best place to view the majestic
peak.
The Tibetan name for Everest, Qomolangma,
means ‘Goddess’, and she unveiled herself
gracefully, a vision of pure beauty. In
Tibetan paintings, Qomolangma is always
depicted wearing a white gown and riding
a white lion through ice and snow.
The Chief lama of the Rongbuk Temple has
been at the temple for 20 years and has
witnessed the impacts of climate change
first-hand. "I have noticed a reduction
in the flow of the Rongbuk River every year
and each year is hotter than the last. I
am worried about the harsh future our children
will suffer", he tells us. Other lamas
tell us that before they used to have to
force their way through chest high snow,
however, now the winter snow only reaches
their shins. We leave the temple and head
towards the base camp of Mount Everest.
From Everest base camp
April is the most popular month for mountain
climbing and we see dozens of tents dotted
around the camp, temporary homes for mountaineers
from across the globe. Heavy snow falls
on our first night at the base camp. At
6 a.m. the next morning, we set off through
the fresh, boot-high snowfall towards the
Rongbuk Glacier, with the aim of completing
a whole day of shooting and returning to
the base camp before nightfall.
The Rongbuk Glacier flows north and into
the Rongbuk Valley north of Mount Everest.
The main goal of our expedition is to reach
the anchor point left by a 1968 Chinese
Academy of Sciences expedition, and take
photographs to compare the state of the
glacier then and now. Our route takes us
from the fork in the road near the base
camp, towards the west side of the Rongbuk
Glacier across its ridge and north along
the west ridge towards Guangming Peak.
Bianba warns us to watch out for falling
rocks from the west ridge because of the
rapid noontime snow melt. Our map tells
us to expect to meet two glaciers on our
way. The map shows the two glaciers descending
from the 6,927m (22,726 ft) Hongxing Peak,
which lies to the west of Everest, then
running east to join the Rongbuk Glacier.
[Note: Comparison photo taken from nearest
safe vantage, as described below.]
Instead, we only come across large rocks
and debris from a huge landslide where the
second glacier was supposed to be. The landslide
totally blocks our way and we have to give
up, although our destination is only 30
minutes' walk away. As our cameramen work
beside a nearby melt-water lake, they heed
Bianba’s earlier warning as large chunks
of ice and snow and a rain of rocks fall
close by.
The serac forests of the Rongbuk Glacier
amazed Chinese scientists in the 1970s.
Seracs are large blocks and columns of ice
found near glacial crevasses formed by the
glacier moving or melting. At the time one
of the scientists wrote, "With a great
variety of shapes and forms, the serac forests
there made us linger with no intent to leave.
Those between 5,300m and 6,500m are extraordinarily
beautiful and fantastic, like an 'ice sculpture
park'."
Today we find a serac forest at 5,600 m
(18,372 ft), but it is sparse, small and
worn. The huge ’ice mushrooms’ which we
expect to see towering above our heads have
almost disappeared.
"When I first climbed Mount Everest
in 2000, I saw serac forests at 5,400m,"
our guide Bianba tells us. "When I
climbed the mountain again in 2006, I only
found the serac forests from 5,800m."
The disappearance of glaciers, large-scale
landslides, rock falls and sparse serac
forests are all clear examples of climate
change.
When our Tibetan porters, who initially
thought we were a team of mountaineers,
learn of our mission, they excitedly ask
our cameramen to record them talking about
their respect for nature, conservation of
water resources and love of life.
Melting glaciers
Himalayan glaciers could shrink from the
present 500,000 square kilometres (193,051
sq miles) to 100,000 square kilometres (38,610
sq miles) by the 2030s. The February 2007
release of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) report on the science
of climate change concluded, with a 90 percent
certainty, that global warming is caused
by human behaviour. The report galvanised
the European Union to set a target of reducing
carbon emissions by at least 20 percent
from 11000 levels by 2020, and by 30 percent
if other industrialised nations set similar
targets.
The Tibetan villagers, farmers, porters
and lamas that we met don’t need statistics
to know that something is very wrong. The
close bond that they have with the environment
they rely on teaches them to watch the signs
- these catastrophic changes have been unfolding
before them every day.
The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau covers an area
of 2.9 million square kilometres (1.1 million
square miles), roughly three times the combined
area of the United Kingdom, France and Germany.
The Kunlun and Qilian mountains in the north,
the Tanglha Mountains in the east and the
Himalayas in the south and west border the
plateau, with an average altitude of 4,500
metres (14,764 feet).
Only one percent of land on the plateau
is arable and crop yields are limited by
the dry, cold climate. Although these conditions
appear harsh to outsiders, the local Tibetans
treasure, revere and celebrate this land.
Tibet
Tibetans have created and maintained their
own living philosophy based on obeying nature,
cherishing it and feeling awe for it. Using
dreamlike imagination and fantastic myths,
Tibetans express their deepest love for
their homeland. Every Tibetan is born into
Buddhism. To them, every living creature
has a soul. The body can die but the soul
will live forever.
Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple, the oldest in Tibet
and built by King Songtsan Gampo when he
married the Tang Dynasty Princess Wen Cheng
more than 1,400 years ago, is always crowded
with pilgrims. Buddhism’s most famous mantra
“Om Mani Padme Hum", can be heard everywhere.
Tibetans worship the lion, yak, macaque
monkey horse, dog, fish, bird and even plants,
but above all, they worship mountains. Surrounded
by high mountains, they feel that they are
very tiny and trivial.
Tibetan culture and the amazing environment
of the region have merged seamlessly. The
spirit of Buddhism and local culture is
in the blood of local people and it shapes
their attitude towards nature. The lives
of Tibetans and the many other peoples of
the region are dominated by the incredible
Himalayas. If glacial retreat continues
to accelerate it will be an ecological,
economic and social catastrophe.
A way forward
It’s not too late to avert the climate
catastrophe. As well as documenting climate
impacts - the costs of doing nothing, Greenpeace
is calling for an Energy Revolution, a critical
shift in the way we produce and use energy.
The solution is to urgently switch investment
from climate changing and dangerous energy
sources such as coal, oil, gas and nuclear,
into sustainable, clean renewable energy
sources like wind and solar, combined with
a programme of energy efficiency measures.
The alternative? There isn’t one. Otherwise,
we have to live with the fact that we stood
by and did nothing as billions of people
suffered and a unique environment was destroyed.
