If you want to trek in Nepal, try doing it virtually on Second Life. Likewise, the best way to save the Maldives from drowning is not to fly there anymore. For many of us who live in countries in the periphery, there is a real feeling that these countries, which carry the least blame for global climate change, are simultaneously the most vulnerable to its impact.
You do not have to be a scientist to see what is happening to the Himalaya. From the Karakoram to Bhutan, glaciers have retreated dramatically within a generation. In the Everest region, the Imja Glacier now has a lake 2.5 kilometres long where there was just ice 30 years ago. When another nearby lake burst in 1984, it washed away a newly built hydroelectric plant, killing 12 people. Local Sherpas blamed the gods, but they should have blamed fossil carbon. Meanwhile, in the Maldives, sea-level rise is now a reality of life, and warm seas have caused extensive coral bleaching. Both threaten tourism, the mainstay of the atoll nation's prosperity. At present estimates of sea-level rise, one-third of Bangladesh's deltas could be under water by the end of the century. Where will the people go?
Scientists can certainly do more modelling, but what we need is for experts to tell us what to do. And then we need to find the money with which to do it. In Bali last month, 15,000 international delegates gathered to so precisely that: set targets for emission cuts, compensate countries for adaptation and technology transfer, and try to help tropical countries with reforestation. After hectic negotiations, the talks were salvaged at the last moment, ultimately charting out a plan for two years of talks to reach a deal before the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2009.
Perhaps we do also need more specific data to give us a better idea of how to sequence interventions. But such data is often out of bounds, with most of the Himalaya located in multiple conflict zones: Afghanistan, India v Pakistan, India v China. Hydrological and precipitation data is still a military secret in our mountains. Countries in the region also need better trans-boundary early-warning systems, so that when a glacial lake bursts in Tibet, for instance, villages on the Nepali side are warned in time. The worst-case scenario is a magnitude eight earthquake in eastern Nepal or Bhutan, which could cause dozens of glacial lakes, swollen by global warming, to burst simultaneously. Perhaps, like nuclear war, we do not want to think about it. But we must, and we must plan for these disasters.