KEY POINTS:
The glaciers at the roof of the world are melting at a faster rate than previously suspected and environmentalists are warning that climate change poses a serious threat to water supplies in China, India and Southeast Asia.
The environmental group Greenpeace said recent expeditions to glaciers on Mt
Everest and other parts of the Himalayas showed a "dramatic" retreat of the rivers of ice, which are the source of many of Asia's largest waterways.
Greenpeace said its findings backed up reports by scientists from the top Chinese Academy of Sciences and the United Nations. Water shortages could affect millions of people who rely on the water from the glaciers to fill their local rivers.
The mighty Yangtze and Yellow rivers, as well as the Mekong and the Ganges, are in danger of running out of water, threatening the livelihood of millions in India, China, Pakistan and other parts of Asia.
The water shortage is particularly acute in China - Beijing has had a drought for nearly 15 years now.
China's lengthy list of pollution woes may soon include even more deserts, droughts and sandstorms.
It's a grim prognosis to take on board. The glaciers will get warmer and melt and the rivers will have less water.
Greenpeace says melting in the mountains of Tibet could choke off water sources vital for large parts of China, part of a chain-reaction of damage from global warming.
Sichuan province in southwestern China is part of the area which relies on the water from the Tibetan peninsula. At Kanding, kilometres away from Jiuzhaigou, there are valley glaciers which are seriously imperilled by rising temperatures.
All across the Qinghai-Tibet highland that spans much of western China, global warming is speeding the retreat of glaciers, stoking evaporation of glacial and snow run-off, and leaving dwindling rivers dangerously clogged with silt, says Greenpeace in a report on climate change in the region.
Recent Chinese Government research shows that global warming is melting the plateau at 7 per cent annually. Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences last year showed the Rongbuk glaciers have retreated by up to 230 meters in the past 30 years.
These glaciers account for 47 per cent of the total glacier coverage in China. Water from the mountain region feeds the Yellow, Yangtze and other rivers that feed hundreds of millions of people across China and South Asia.
The fact that the Chinese Academy of Sciences is also coming up with these findings is significant, as it shows that the Chinese Government is aware of the dangers of climate change. China is expected to become the world's biggest CO2 emitter soon, and environmental issues are high on the agenda when talking to people on the street, particularly in Beijing where the air is so bad.
It's still unclear exactly how quickly the glaciers will melt.
Conservationists working in the region emphasise that the issue is climate change, which can mean both warming and cooling, though they say the impact of both could be immense on rain and snowfall.
Li Yan of Greenpeace's Beijing office said pools of water accumulating from melted glaciers were building up and then bursting through, endangering people living downstream. Increased evaporation and accumulation in unstable glacier lakes were also making water flows less predictable and more dangerous.
In a video shown by the Greenpeace team, a Tibetan monk who has lived on the lower slopes of Everest for many years summed up the problem: "Now the winter is as hot as summer. The weather change is obvious."
- INDEPENDENT
