(TibetanReview.net, Nov16’25) –As world leaders gathered in Belem, capital of the Brazilian state of Pará in the Amazon forests, for the COP 30 conference over Nov 6-21 with the Amazon as a centre of their attention, a small delegation from the Sweden-based Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo Pacific Affairs (SCSA IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy sought to draw their attention to another vital ecosystem that was slipping through the cracks. Their mission was to bring global focus on the fast-worsening climate emergency on the Tibetan Plateau under China’s relentless militarization, plundering of resources and building of infrastructure on a scale the region could do without.
The team participated in the 30th session of the 2025 UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 30), followed by high-level dialogues in Rio de Janeiro, to highlight one of the world’s most neglected ecological flashpoints and the rapidly worsening climate crisis across Tibet and the Himalayan region, reported the IANS news agency Nov 14.
The team has noted that’s COP30’s central themes of Amazonian preservation, indigenous environmental rights, and sustainable development had rightly captured global attention. However, the SCSA-IPA team noted in a statement that another ecosystem of planetary significance, Tibet, remained conspicuously underrepresented in international climate discourse.
“The Tibetan Plateau is warming nearly three times faster than the rest of the world, triggering rapid glacial retreat, permafrost degradation, and destabilisation of major river systems,” the statement pointed out.
The report said that in meetings with climatologists, indigenous rights specialists, and environmental researchers in Belem, Panda emphasised that the consequences of Tibet’s environmental deterioration extended far beyond the borders of the People’s Republic of China.
The Tibetan Plateau feeds ten major river systems, sustaining nearly 2 billion people across South Asia and Southeast Asia. The loss of ice reserves shifts in precipitation patterns, and intensifying water scarcity downstream could reshape the region’s food security, energy planning, disaster vulnerability, and geopolitical dynamics, the statement noted.
The statement continued that the crisis is compounded by Beijing’s expanding hydro-infrastructure, including dams and diversion schemes along major transboundary rivers. It added that China’s newly proposed Medog Water Diversion Project stood out as an initiative with profound implications for downstream countries, one that could alter the ecological balance of the Brahmaputra basin and aggravate regional insecurities.
Besides, “mining pressures add another dimension to the ecological threat. Rising extraction of lithium, rare earths, copper, and other resources across Tibet has disrupted fragile mountain terrains and contributed to soil degradation and habitat loss. Simultaneously, the forced relocation of Tibetan nomadic communities has weakened long-established systems of high-altitude environmental stewardship,” the statement said.
Earlier, releasing their report early last month, ahead of the COP30 conference, SCSA-IPA said China had transformed the Tibetan Plateau, one of the world’s most fragile environments, into a zone of extreme ecological stress under its state‑centric model of infrastructure expansion, militarisation, and resource extraction.
The report, titled as ‘Wither Tibet in the Climate Crisis Agenda?’, brought together more than 20 international experts to examine the Tibetan Plateau’s accelerating ecological breakdown and its far‑reaching implications for Asia’s water security, regional stability, and global climate governance.