National Herald
In the run up to the Glasgow climate talks (COP26) and the ongoing UN biodiversity summit, a new report on Tuesday blamed China, the world’s biggest maker and user of coal, cement and steel, for climate change across the Tibetan Plateau, the world’s ‘third pole’.
It says climate change greatly impacts livelihoods, even though customary modes of production generate very little of the emissions that cause climate change.
However, China makes great use of Tibet to mitigate its climate impact by declaring huge watersheds to be national parks, thus offsetting ongoing and still rising emissions, and repairing reputational damage.
The report, by Tibetan Centre of Human Rights and Democracy, provides evidence that using the Tibetan Plateau to offset China’s carbon footprints has not translated into eco-compensation for rural Tibetan landholders for their provisioning of ecosystem services.
China distorts the concept of payment for ecosystem services by dislocating Tibetan nomadic communities, and forcibly removing them off their lands, says the report by the NGO committed to advancing human rights and democracy.
China’s eco-compensation policy raises questions of human rights and sustainable development, and of nature’s contribution to humanity, with global impacts and consequences.
Click here to read the full report