International climate conference kicks off in Dharamshala

By Choekyi Lhamo

DHARAMSHALA, April 22: An international climate conclave, organized by various support groups of Tibet, began on Thursday announcing a stellar line-up of climate scientists, activists, authors, academicians for its 3-day ‘Dialogue for Our Future’ conference in Dharamshala, the seat of the exile Tibetan government and the residence of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

The keynote address was given by 26-year-old Kenyan climate activist Elizabeth Wathuthi, founder of the Green Generation Initiative. “We still somehow find ourselves at the precipice of an interconnected triple-planetary emergency of our climate, nature and pollution crises. And I have found myself asking how this can be, why is it that even as we are presented with more and more information about the causes and the solutions to these problems, we are failing to take the actions needed to address them?” activist Elizabeth remarked, noting that at the Glasgow COP26 event, she drew attention to the climate crises faced by her home country Kenya and in the African continent.

Another climate mitigation specialist and innovator Sonam Wangchuk from Ladakh reached Dharamshala with a block of glacial ice that will be presented to the Dalai Lama on Friday morning to serve as an “urgent reminder of how fast Himalayan glaciers, and glaciers around the world” are melting due to climate change. “We will have to change the way we have been doing things, and by being more mindful of human activities and by living a life which is in harmony with nature,” Wangchuk told the press on his arrival in Dharamshala.

The eco-innovator further emphasized on the importance of Himalayas for the rest of the world, “Right now, [Himalaya] has been like a thermometer. As the glaciers melt, it is showing that temperatures are rising, like a thermometer to the world. We should know that it is the biggest bank of freshwater, so we have to take care of that. Nearly a billion people depend on it.” He and his team of youth climate activists hiked and bicycled to transport this block of Himalayan ice from Khardung la, one of the world’s tallest passes, to Dharamshala.

The Communications Associate of the conference Jyotsna Sara George told the press that this “conference is a culmination of call for climate action that was made by His Holiness the Dalai Lama several years ago, and we have brought together a number of speakers, youth climate activists from all over the world, businesspeople, scientists, researchers and experts to sit together and discuss what are the real and practical things, individually and collectively, we all can do to change the situation we are in.” This international meeting, held six months after COP26 in Glasgow, is inspired by the urgent appeal made by His Holiness’ in his book ‘Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World’ (2020) where he called on world leaders to save the planet from a “future of runaway climate change”.