Background and Context
Global Context.
The world is facing a prolonged period of planetary warming, which is unparalleled in human history. The scientific consensus holds that this is largely a consequence of anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. The impacts of higher temperatures are already being felt and are visible in melting glaciers, rising sea levels, more frequent storms and extreme weather events. The 1990s was the warmest decade and 2005 the warmest year on record since 1800. At current trends, science predicts that the Arctic would be ice-free within 100 years. Sporadic data indicate that snow melting is increasing at an alarming rate in the Nepal Himalaya.
Climate change has become central to the development and poverty reduction agenda. The effects of climate change will not be evenly distributed across countries. The industrialized countries are responsible for the vast bulk of past and current greenhouse gas emissions. But the developing countries and the poorest people will suffer the most from climate change because of geography, limited assets and a greater dependence on climate sensitive sources of
income. Yet few developing countries are well adapted to even current climate shocks and stresses. Climate change is predicted to increase the variability and frequency of extreme events in ways that are outside the realm of experience. Some of the impacts would be in the form of new challenges (such as snow melting and sea level rise), others would likely emerge as old threats more severe by climate change (such as flooding or irregular rainfall).

Regional Vulnerabilities.
Geography and high population densities have rendered the South Asia region especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. The South Asian Himalayas are the source of the mighty rivers of the region that supply the world’s most densely populated flood plains, settled by over 700 million people. Since the region shares geological formations - such as, the Himalayas - and river basins, natural hazards frequently transcend national boundaries. Over 50 percent of South Asians - more than 750 million people have been affected by a natural disaster in the last two decades. With climate change, the frequency and incidence of such natural disasters is projected to increase. Increased snow melting would likely decline in stream and river flow and affect drinking water and irrigation systems in the long-run. Sea level rise poses an existential threat to the Maldives, and could disrupt economic activity for some
100 million people living along the coastal belt of South Asia. Temperature changes are projected to depress agricultural yields across the region and more frequent extreme climate events such as storm surges, cyclones, floods and droughts will cause further economic damage.
The South Asia region shares the most important impacts of climate change. Box 1 highlights a number of those commonalities. In sum, unchecked climate change poses a serious long-term threat to the region’s economic prospects and could jeopardize or even reverse hard-won development gains.

Box 1. Climate Change Impacts in South Asia
Afghanistan. Already extreme climate variability (drought/flood shocks) will increase, intensifying existing livelihood fragility and compounding social and economic risks.
Bangladesh. Exceptional scale of impacts including sea-level rise directly affecting at least 30% of the population, coupled with intensified monsoons and changes in rainfall patterns yielding flood and drought shocks, and cyclones, all stretching current community adaptation to the limit. Massive climate out-migration is likely to happen.
Bhutan. The knowledge base is limited. However, rising temperatures and the associated glacial melt, GOLF and varying agricultural yields are likely to be the greatest threats to the country. India. Increased intensity and frequency of storm surges, cyclones, floods and droughts, negative impact on agricultural yields, decrease in river flows, sea level rise and its impact on coastal livelihoods and consequences of Himalayan snow melt and associated risks are the
major climate change-induced issues. The magnitude of every climate change impact is likely to be among the world’s highest, but this massive challenge is crowded out by mitigation concerns.
Maldives. Sea-level rise and tidal surges threaten to displace the majority of the population Nepal. Severe climate change impacts through snow melting and glacial lake outburst and lowland floods and potential threat on hydroelectricity generation due to low river flow; however, unique opportunity for compensation for environmental services as country is potential key to adaptation in the river basins through adoption of renewable and/or clean energy development path including hydroelectricity development and forest management
Pakistan. Potentially huge and rapid reductions in (50% glacier-fed) Indus flows, coupled with intensified droughts and sea-level rise, will require major livelihood transitions and economic transformation, with consequent risks of social upheaval if unplanned. Sri Lanka. Sea-level rise and increased cyclone incidence impacting dense coastal populations and livelihoods.

Contribution to Greenhouse Gas Emissions (GHGs).
While vulnerability to climate change is high, increased fossil-fuel based social and economic development might lead the region as a visible contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. High economic growth has fueled an insatiable thirst for energy in South Asia. Rising energy demand is driven by urbanization, industrialization and prosperity, all of which are part of a broader process of development that is lifting millions of South Asians out of poverty. However, increased high carbon containing energy consumption has been accompanied by rising GHG emissions. On average, emissions have risen at about
3.3 percent annually in the region since 1990 - more rapidly than in any other region, except the Middle East. However, per capita emissions of the region are still extremely low by international standards - less than one-tenth of the developed countries.
As the region strives to meet its development goals, the potential for further growth in emissions is enormous. Over 400 million people in South Asia have no access to electricity. How the region meets the legitimate demands for energy and economic prosperity will have far-reaching consequences on global GHG emissions. South Asia like the rest of the world faces an enormous challenge to sustain its growth while addressing global warming.

The Himalayan Context.
The Himalayan region poses the most far reaching climate related challenge for the region, but also offers immense opportunities for managing the climate risks as well as spurring economic development. The Himalaya glaciers store the largest body of ice outside the polar region. Already, the effects of climate change on the Himalayan glaciers, mountain ecosystems, monsoon behavior, and flood and drought intensity are impacting the livelihoods of South Asia’s populations. The retreating glaciers of the Himalayas pose a potentially severe threat to the lives and livelihoods of over 700 million South Asians.
Nevertheless, understanding of the extent and consequences of climate change is limited. As a result, the plight of the Himalayas and the implications for the floodplains has received little global attention. The most significant impacts of climate change are shared by many countries across the Himalaya Region and all of South Asia and call for communication, cooperation and joint actions to address these common threats. As an example, changes in glacier melt, runoff and water use patterns due to climate change, could significantly impact future water availability across the region. Adaptation to climate change therefore requires not just local action but also crossboundary cooperative arrangements.
On the other hand, the development opportunities in the Himalayas are also great and climate change could act as a catalyst to foster the cooperation that is needed to harness these benefits. Sustainable management of watersheds, forests and huge untapped hydropower resources will promote low carbon economy in the sub-region. Management of rivers to reduce the impacts of floods and droughts and increasing irrigation reliability will support the adaptation
to climate change of vast populations. This will require significant financial resources but will also generate economic prosperity across the region.

Need for cooperative solutions.
Cooperative approaches play a key role in adaptation and development in the Himalayan region. With climate change, the monsoons (and hence droughts and floods) are expected to become more intense and less predictable. Coping with these mounting extremes in the river basins of South Asia will require more basin-wide information to predict and warn against floods, for example. It will also call for more basin-wide river
management, with coordinated capacity to lower flood peaks and augment low-season flows. Cooperative approaches could play a significant role in the design of a global financial architecture to address climate change. Climate change calls for strengthening the current international financial architecture for development at a scale never seen before. This includes appropriate reforms in additional development assistance mechanisms in terms of external
assistance instruments - loans, concessional financing, grants, risk mitigation through equity and guarantees - from bilateral and multilateral sources. Also, a number of new proposals for the design of a global financial architecture to address climate change have been put forward, drawing on public or private sources, or both, and calling for market-based mechanisms, tax mediated contributions or other innovative instruments.
Cooperative approaches could facilitate the transition to low carbon economies in the region as well. The most significant opportunities are in energy trade between the countries with a surplus of clean renewable sources of energy (hydropower in Bhutan and Nepal and perhaps wind energy in Sri Lanka) and the energy deficit countries, i.e., Nepal, India and Pakistan. These offer significant untapped development opportunities to both the suppliers of clean energy as
well as the consuming nations.
Technological solutions are imperative in meeting the challenges of climate change. Broad diffusion of current mitigation and adaptation technologies and transition to new ones, for example, are expected to improve efficiency in energy use, introduce less carbon-intensive sources of energy, further develop renewable energy sources and usher a more climate resilient development pathway. However, issues relating to intellectual property rights (IPR) and limited
opportunities for information sharing about future demands and future technological possibilities between technology users and producers often reduce incentives for innovation and diffusion. Collaborative efforts in overcoming barriers to technology transfer, research and development and information sharing between institutions in the regions are critical to addressing this technology gap.

Regional Climate Change Conference
It is in this context that the Government of Nepal - together with ADB, DANIDA, DFID and the World Bank - has offered to host a regional climate conference on August 31 and September 1, 2009. Locating the event in Nepal is strategic and advantageous taking into consideration the theme of the conference and her cordial relations with all its South Asia neighbors. Nepal represents one of the iconic examples of climate vulnerability with threats posed by the melting glaciers of the Himalayas and impacts that transcend political boundaries. Nepal is endowed with substantial hydrological resources that could be pivotal in addressing clean energy needs in the region. Furthermore its geographic location in the Himalayan headwaters of many of the region’s major river systems provide it with strategic climate change adaptation opportunities, to monitor and regulate river flows.
The regional conference would be the first of its kind and would have as its theme the gains from the cooperative climate actions through the Bali Road Map or the Bali Action Plan (BAP) - endorsed by the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (CoP 13) to UNFCCC held in Bali in 2007. The conference is expected to have global demonstration effects that would help initiate a dialogue between countries, raise the profile of adaptation needs in South Asia, including the Himalayas, within the global donor community and provide the catalyst needed to provide the resources for implementing the Bali Action Plan.
While the proposed conference would strive to consolidate a cooperative approach for the South Asia Himalayas, initiatives have been taken by individual countries and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) toward addressing the challenges of the climate change. The SAARC Environment Ministers adopted the SAARC Action Plan and Declaration on Climate Change at the SAARC Environment Ministerial Meeting in Dhaka in July 2008. The 15th SAARC summit held in Colombo in August 2008 reiterated the need for strengthening cooperation within the region to deal with climate change issues. Following the CoP 13, the Government of Bangladesh launched its Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP)
at a UK-Bangladesh conference in London in September 2008. In early 2009, Pakistan’s Ministry of Environment held a Corporate Summit on Climate Change aimed at increasing the involvement of corporations in Pakistan on the climate challenge.

Objectives of the Conference
The primary objectives of this conference are to:
(i) provide a forum for the countries of the South Asia Himalayas and other countries in the region to share knowledge and experience about common risks that climate change brings and the immense development opportunities that could be fostered; and
(ii) forge a common vision of the Himalayan climate challenges, including, the important regional and global role they play in climate change issues. The
Conference is expected to contribute on climate change threats and opportunities for South Asia including on major issues under discussions in the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term
Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) and AWG-Kyoto Protocol. The Bank would facilitate the conference by providing a regional strategy document together
with climate reports that would emphasize vulnerabilities, common risks and resource needs. There would also be discussion on the role of the region in pioneering win-win approaches to low carbon growth and building climate resilient economies. The conference would aim to conclude with a vision statement symbolizing a common understanding of the magnitude of future climate risks, development opportunities and potential and the common goals of affected countries as specified in the Bali Action Plan. The timing of the conference is opportune. Coming ahead of the all important Copenhagen CoP later this
year, the conference would be timely and provide visible demonstration of the developing country concerns about climate vulnerabilities in the South Asia Himalayas and the region as a whole.