COP15: Tibetan Delegates Seek World’s Attention on Significance of Tibet’s EnvironmentMonday, 14 December 2009, 10:52 a.m.
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| Tibetan delegates take part in a rally at the ongoing UN’s conference to tackle climate change in Danish capital Copenhagen/Photo by Tenzin Norbu, EDD, DIIR |
The Tibetan delegation at the UN’s climate-change conference in
Copenhagen organised a series of panel discussions and screening of
documentary films to draw the international community’s attention on
the impacts of climate change on the Tibetan plateau and its
repercussions on billions of lives depending on its rivers.Copenhagen: On
Sunday, all the Tibetan supporters, including Students for a Free Tibet
in UK and France, participated in the “Third Pole Forum”, a short
documentary screened at the Green Hall by Navdanya. Addressing
the event, Dr. Vandana Shiva, a prominent environmental activist based
in Delhi, raised the climate issue on Tibet, The Third Pole, and
introduced proceeding from her latest climate forum held in Delhi. Dr. Vandana also spoke on a separate chapter about the climate change on the Tibetan plateau. She will deliver more talks at Orange Hall about the food security.Earlier on Saturday, the Tibetan delegates and their supporters joined a rally participated by around 100,000 people.
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The
Tibetan delegation from Dharamsala led by Tenzin Norbu and Chokyi,
researchers from the Environment and Development Desk; Chodon and
Mewang from Tibetan Settlement Office; Ven Ngawang, Gu Chu Sum and
Dolker Lhamo Kirti and Dhadon Sharling from Tibetan Women’s
Association, marched together under the banner ” Tibet is Melting, Cut
CO2″.The delegates wore yak costumes to highlight the plight of
Tibetan nomads and their herds of animals due to the degradation of
grasslands caused partly by climate change and the Chinese government’s
wrong policies, including the forced relocation of nomads. The
rally, which lasted for 4 hours from the Parliament building to Bella
Center, the main official venue for the Copenhagen climate-change
conference, received extensive media coverage about the significance of
the Tibetan Plateau.Tibetan supporters representing Students
for a Free Tibet from the UK, France and Germany, also joined the march
to raise their voice for the climate injustice happening in Tibet.
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| From left: Dhadon Sharling, Tibetan Women’s Association (TWA); Tenzin Norbu, Environment and Development Desk and Dolker Lhamo Kirti, President, TWA, during a press conference on the impacts of climate change on the Tibetan plateau, in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 11 December 2009 |
On
Friday, the delegates spoke during a panel discussion on “Climate
change, Human Solutions: Tibetan Nomads and the Future of Tibet under
Climate change”.Moderated by Dhardon Sharlng, a researcher at
Tibetan Women’s Association, Tenzin Norbu and Chokyi, Environment and
Development Desk of the Department of Information and International
Relations introduced to core environmental issues in Tibet, and the
specific case of Tibet’s nomads respectively.Ngawang Woebar,
president of Gu Chu Sum and Lama Lobsang Darjy talked about how
environmental issues create social problems and lead to arrests for
political dissents.Dolker Lhamo Kirti, president of Tibetan
Women’s Association, talked about mining and climate change based on
case study from Markham in TibetTash Despa shared his experiences with Tibetan nomads.Documentary films about how young Tibetans in exile are aware of climate change and are taking responsibility, were screened.–Based on report filed by Tenzin Norbu, Environment and Development Desk, DIIR
