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Interstate Cooperation for Climate Change Adaptation in Indian Himalayan Region
Mainstreaming climate concerns in cross-sectoral planning and teamwork among neighbouring states in the Indian Himalayan Region are persistent hurdles in addressing climate adaptation at the state and regional levels. The authors propose interstate cooperation facilitation through a specific knowledge network, decentralised and coordinated approach for capacity building, joint adaptation project formulation and implementation, high-level coordination mechanism, and the creation of an adaptation portal as a novel way forward.
This study was carried out under the Himalayan Climate Change Adaptation Programme, an initiative under International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development’s Regional Programme on Adaptation to Change and implemented in collaboration with the Centre for International Climate and Environmental Research–Oslo and GRID–Arendal. It is supported by the governments of Norway and Sweden. The authors would like to thank Jun Jun Zhou for her research assistance.
The Indian Himalayan Region (IHR) continues to support the needs of over 1.3 billion people. However, by 2050, temperatures across the IHR are projected to increase by about 1°C–2°C, the monsoon is expected to become longer and more erratic, precipitation is projected to change by 5% on average, and the intensity of extreme rainfall occurrences are likely to increase (Shrestha et al 2015a: 1–96). The resulting demand on water resources, increase in flash floods and droughts, formation of additional glacial lakes/increased risk of Glacier Lake Outburst Floods (GLOFs), and increased risk of diseases (Shrestha et al 2015b) would increase the vulnerability of mountain communities, especially women due to their constrained adaptive abilities (Mishra et al 2017). Between 2010 and 2014, there have been seven major disasters in the IHR contributing to the loss of over 4,500 human lives (NDMA nd). While it may not be appropriate to attribute these disasters to climate change, the scale of damage caused by them highlights the need to enhance resilience among mountain communities of the region.
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