(TibetanReview.net, Dec07’24) –China has built or plans to build hundreds of hydropower dams in Tibet and data on a sample of 193 of them betray a formula for irreparable damage to the Tibetan civilization, the environment, downstream nations, and the climate, said Washington-based Tibet advocacy group International Campaign for Tibet (ICT, savetibet.org) in a new report Dec 5.
Tibet’s glacial peaks are the headwaters of the region’s eight major rivers with transnational flows. The report’s rigorous research and advanced GIS mapping details the Chinese Communist Party’s rampant construction of 100s of hydropower dams. Its first-of-kind interactive map allows users to see the impact each dam will have on local populations, religious sites, and surrounding land covers, the group said.
The report also presents alternatives for developing truly sustainable, renewable energy, the group added.
“The scale and scope of the PRC’s hydropower dam spree is both unbelievable and unconscionable,” ICT President Tencho Gyatso has said.
“Beijing’s disrespect for the Tibetan people’s rights, its neighbours’ fate, and the urgent moral and scientific demand to combat climate change could not be clearer. China must be stopped in its tracks and called to use its money, manpower, and innovation to advance solutions–not its political manoeuvring.”
One of the report’s key findings is that if completed, 1.2 million residents near the 193 dam project sites could be dislocated from their homes, communities, and livelihoods. Religious and sacred sites serving communities will also be destroyed.
This is because almost 80% of the dams studied in the report are large or mega dams (with over 100MW capacity).
However, 60% of these dams are either in proposal or preparation stages, presenting opportunities to change course, the report said.
The group calls on China to cease all planning, proposing, and construction, including projects underway, of large-scale hydropower dams in Tibet.
It calls on China to protect the right of the Tibetan people to participate in all development projects as per the 1986 UN Declaration on the Right to Development and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, including the right to free, prior, and informed consent. This would include an end to the forced dislocation of Tibetan communities.
The report calls on China to instead invest in properly sited and inclusively developed solar and wind power, as they do not carry the demonstrable environmental, climate, and social costs of hydropower. These projects should prioritize co-management, co-benefits, and maintenance of traditional ways of life, and in particular, they should correspond to the needs of the local Tibetan population, it added.
The report also calls on China to engage in multi-lateral transboundary water policy forums to establish a mutually beneficial management architecture and data sharing norms.
“Hydrological data and dam project plans should not be used as bargaining tools leveraged against downstream states.”