아시아의 ‘빙하’가 녹는다···30년 뒤 기후난민 2억5천만명

[아시아엔=프라모드 마터 인도 스폿 필름 CEO] 마하트마 간디는 생전 이런 말을 남겼다. “세상은 모든 이들에게 부족함이 없지만, 한 사람의 탐욕을 충족시키기엔 한없이 부족하다.” 때문에 사람들이 ‘필요한 것’과 ‘탐욕’의 차이를 이해하는 것은 매우 중요하다. 그러나 이 간단한 이치를 인류는 그동안 외면해왔다. 인류가 사용할 수 있는 자원은 한계에 다다랐고, 자연은 망가지기 시작했다.

1945년 종전 이래 많은 변화가 있었고, 그 중에서도 가장 눈에 띄는 변화는, 인류를 위협하고 있는 전지구적 ‘기후변화’다. 이미 경고등은 켜졌다. 지난 1천년 가운데 최근 50년은 지구가 가장 뜨거운 시기였다. 아시아도 예외는 아니다. 힌두쿠시대산맥과 티베트고원을 아우르는 히말라야 전체 산맥은 그 길이만 4300만km가 넘는다.

아프가니스탄, 부탄, 주국, 인도, 미얀마, 네팔, 파키스탄 등 아시아 각국에 걸쳐져 있다. 이곳은 극지방을 제외하고 전세계에서 가장 많은 눈과 얼음을 간직한 곳이기도 하다. 특히 총 길이 2400km에 이르는 히말라야 산맥에는 전세계에서 가장 깨끗한 물의 70%를 보유한 빙하 1만8천개가 존재한다. 그러나 빙하 가운데 67% 가량이 지구온도상승으로 사라져가고 있다.

연구에 따르면 이 빙하들은 향후 40년이내 지구온난화로 인해 모두 소멸될 것으로 예상된다. 더욱 심각한 것은, 이 빙하들이 아시아의 인더스강, 양쯔강, 황하강, 갠지스강, 메콩강 물줄기의 원천이라는 점이다. 인도 갠지스강과 중국 양쯔강은 5억5천만명을 먹여 살리고 있으며, 히말라야 산맥 곳곳에 자리한 강 유역에는 1억3천만명이 살고 있다. 이런 상황에서 지구 온도가 조금이라도 상승한다면 그로 인한 피해는 이루 말할 수 없을 것이다.

아시아 가운데서도 방글라데시의 경우는 기후변화에 특히 취약하다. 전문가들에 따르면 향후 50년내 해수면이 1미터 상승했을 때 방글라데시 해안지대 3분의1 가량이 물에 잠길 것으로 예상된다. 이곳에 거주하는 2천만명이 삶의 터전을 잃게 되는 셈이다. 방글라데시가 코 앞으로 다가온 기후 변화에 대비하기 위한 제방시설, 피난처, 도로 및 인프라 시설을 갖추려면 40억달러(4조6440억원)의 예산이 필요하다.

전세계 기후변화로 삶의 터전을 잃고 방황하는 ‘기후난민’도 날로 증가하고 있다. 최근 영국의 세계적인 환경학자 노먼 마이어스는 향후 2050년 기후난민은 2억5천만명 수준에 이를 것이라 내다봤다. 이들 대부분은 거처를 옮겨 다니며 ‘언젠가 고향으로 다시 돌아갈 수 있다’는 작은 희망을 품고 하루하루 근근이 버티고 있다. 이제 질문은 몇 가지로 귀결된다. 누가 이 엄청난 재앙을 막기 위해 나설 것인가? 전세계가 지구온난화의 주범인 온실가스를 별다른 갈등 없이 해결할 수 있을까? 곧 닥칠 기후난민 문제는 어떻게 해결할 것인가?

The Glacial Tragedy The Water Tower of Asia

It is important for the human race to understand the difference between the “need” and “one person’s greed”. Need is self-limiting and knows its boundaries; greed creates more greed and ultimately, cascades beyond all control. Human race has refused to accept this simple fact and is set out to cause misery for itself. The world is already hitting global limits in its use of resources. There are now seven billion people on the planet, compared to just three billion half-century ago.

The Industrial Revolution in the 19th century saw the large-scale use of fossil fuels. Industries created jobs. Rural urban migration took place for a better life. This migration is continuing even today in most less developed and developing nations. Deforestation for new habitations also continues in these countries. Natural resources are being used extensively for construction, industries, transport and consumption. Consumerism has increased. Also, our population has increased to an incredible extent.

Since the end of World War II in 1945, much has changed in our world. The most visible change that human race has experienced since then has been in the climate of the earth that has changed to our detriment.

Summer months are longer and hotter in the southern hemisphere. Unseasonal rain destroy agriculture fields. Seasons are shifting, temperatures are rising and sea levels are rising due to glacial melt. According to scientific research, this change will cause hurricanes and tropical storms to become more intense with stronger wind force, causing more damage to coastal ecosystems and communities.

With the increase in temperature, droughts have already become longer, more frequent and more severe. In spite of scientific intervention, agriculture output has not risen in Asia and Africa as expected.

Meeting 150 world leaders at COP 21 in Paris last month, in a blunt warning to rich nations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told developed countries, which powered their way to prosperity on fossil fuels that it would be “morally wrong” if they shift the burden of reducing emissions on developing countries like India.

In response to an article in UK’s leading financial daily, the Financial Times, Modi wrote, “The instinct of our culture is to take a sustainable path to development…This idea, rooted in our ancient texts, endures in sacred groves and in community forests across the land.”

He further wrote, “India is also experiencing the impact of climate change caused by the industrial age of the developed world. We are concerned about our 7,500 km. of coastline, more than 1,300 islands, the glaciers that sustain our civilisation and our millions of vulnerable farmers”.

Some of the most crucial topics of discussions and agreements that could come out of this are centred on implementing new policies, with the end-goal of limiting rising global temperatures to within 2°C. The ultimate goal of COP21 was to create an atmosphere of collectivism and tackle the crisis of climate change from a globally united perspective ? and to spread awareness and explore solutions.

Three years back, an anchor on ABC News in America, was sharing the information about global warming with his audience. He said, “Global warming is really happening… for the doubters, 332 straight months of above average temperatures is not proof enough…” To back up his claim, he played a film about the receding glaciers… The commentary of the film went like this, “since 1979 half of the arctic sea ice has disappeared…”

Alarm bells are already ringing around the world. Last 50 years have been the warmest in 1000 years. Closer home in Asia, matters are as serious if not more.

The Himalayan region, encompassing the Hindu Kush mountains and the Tibetan Plateau, spans an area of more than 4.3 million square kilometres spread across Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan. The region stores more snow and ice than anywhere else in the world outside the two poles. 2,400 kilometres long Himalayan mountain range has over 18,000 glaciers, of which 67% have been receding due to rising temperature of the earth. This is the largest volume of ice found outside the polar region. 70% of world’s fresh water is frozen in these glaciers. No wonder it is called as “Water Tower of Asia”. These glaciers may vanish in 40 years as a result of global warming as per some studies.

Gangotri glacier that feeds river Ganga has receded over 20 meters in ten years. Khumbu glacier in Nepal has receded over 5 kilometres since 1953. This rapid melting of glaciers has increased the volume of water in the rivers, causing flooding. These glaciers feed seven great rivers of Asia…Indus, Yangtze, Yellow, Ganga, Mekong and Huang He. Yangtze and Ganga alone support over 550 million people of the world. The entire Himalayan river basins are home to about 1.3 billion people and supply water, food and energy to more than 3 billion people. Crossing the 2 degrees ceiling is truly dangerous for the human race.

There is a new phenomenon in the global arena: Environmental refugees. These are people who can no longer gain a secure livelihood in their homelands because of drought, soil erosion, desertification, deforestation and other environmental problems, together with associated problems of population pressures and profound poverty. In their desperation, these people feel they have no alternative but to seek sanctuary elsewhere, however hazardous the attempt. Not all of them have fled their countries, many being internally displaced. But all have abandoned their homelands on a semi-permanent if not permanent basis, with little hope of a foreseeable return.

Climate refugee crisis
As far back as 1995, these environmental refugees totalled at least 25 million people, compared with 27 million traditional refugees (people fleeing political oppression, religious persecution and ethnic troubles). British environmentalist, Norman Myers, more recently, has suggested that the figure of environment refugees by 2050 might be as high as 250 million.

The environmental refugees total may well have doubled between 1995 and 2010. Moreover, it could increase steadily for a good while thereafter, as growing numbers of impoverished people press ever harder on over-loaded environments causing other compounded urban crises. When global warming takes hold, there could be as many as 200 million people overtaken by disruptions of monsoon systems and other rainfall regimes, by droughts of unprecedented severity and duration, and by sea-level rise and coastal flooding.

Mountain glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibet-Qinghai Plateau could soon deprive the major rivers of India and China of the ice melt needed to sustain them during the dry season. In the Ganges, the Yellow, and the Yangtze River basins, where irrigated agriculture depends heavily on rivers, this loss of dry-season flow will further shrink harvests.

The world has never faced such a predictably massive threat to food production as that posed by the melting mountain glaciers of Asia. China and India are the world’s leading producers of both wheat and rice – humanity’s food staples. China’s wheat harvest is nearly double that of the United States, which ranks third after India. With rice, India and China together account for over half of the world harvest. Europe must prepare for increased competition over dwindling resources, waves of climate change refugees and energy wars.

Experts say, a third of Bangladesh’s coastline could be flooded if the sea rises one meter in the next 50 years, creating an additional 20 million Bangladeshis displaced from their homes and farms. This is about the same as Australia’s population. It is unclear how the government could feed, house or find enough clean water for vast numbers of climate refugees in a country of 160 million people crammed into an area of 147,610 square kilometres. Bangladesh needs much more than over $4 billion to build embankments, cyclone shelters, roads and other infrastructure in the next few decades to mitigate the threats.

The President of Maldives has already announced collection of a sovereign fund to buy land to shift his country and the population to India, Sri Lanka or Australia.

The question now is, who is going to pay to ward off this catastrophe?

In other words, what it means is that, can we resolve the issue of GHG emissions today at a much lower cost and resolve the impending environmental refugee issues now. By reducing emissions today, the west is sure to save a huge amount of crisis mitigation funds that would be required in the year 2050.