Himalayan climate change puts the lives of 1.5 billion at risk, Vatican newspaper warns
June 27, 2024
» Continue to this story on L'Osservatore Romano (Italian)
CWN Editor's Note: With the headline “Se sull’Himalaya non nevica più” [If in the Himalayas it no longer snows], the Vatican newspaper warned that “serious water shortages put the existence of one and a half billion people at risk.”
“A quarter of the world’s population, which depends on melting Himalayan snow for its water supply, is at risk of severe water shortages this year because of a significant drop in snowfall across the Asian mountain range,” Francesco Citterich wrote in the most prominent front-page article in the June 25 edition of L’Osservatore Romano.
Citterich cited a report by the Nepali-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD). The text of the report documents the regional decline in snowfall and notes that “this frozen water is a critical source of freshwater for approximately 240 million people living in the HKH [Hindu Kush Himalaya] region and has far-reaching benefits for around 1.65 billion individuals downstream.”
The report, however, does not state that the lives of 1.5 billion people are at risk, nor does it have the sense of alarm that the Vatican newspaper conveys. Rather, the report states that “the below normal snow persistence may also affect water availability in early summer this year, requiring the implementation for drought management strategies ... To ensure long-term resilience to climate change, there should be collaboration among countries sharing transboundary rivers to update their water management laws.”
The above note supplements, highlights, or corrects details in the original source (link above). About CWN news coverage.
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