Science-Policy Dialogue on “regional cooperation on adaptation to cascading climate risks in the Hindu Kush Himalaya”

The impacts and implications of climate change are not confined by national borders. They affect international trade and supply chains, capital flows, human mobility, as well as natural resources shared regionally and globally. Likewise, actions to adapt to the impacts of climate change can have effects far beyond the jurisdictions of implementing governments. The consequences of climate change, and the measures governments take to respond to them, may be viewed as sub-national and national policy issues, but they also transcend national boundaries and require collaborative remedial action. Yet, current response measures, adaptation plans and strategies usually fail to account for such dynamics.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is one of the most vulnerable regions to the cross-border and cascading impacts of climate change. These impacts transmit across national and regional borders and pose grave threats to the region’s people – particularly women, children, persons with disabilities and economically and socially marginalized groups – and the economies, biodiversity and sustainability of ecosystems on which they depend. Ambitious and transformative adaptation actions at the local and national level are urgently needed, but collective and concerted action is also imperative if the region is to adapt to cross-border and cascading climate risk and sustain the HKH’s biodiversity and the livelihoods at the heart of its communities. A regional cooperation mechanism is crucial to coordinate such collective action, effectively respond to the cross-border and cascading nature of climate risk and pursue region-wide resilience.