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China’s Massive Hydropower Project in Tibet Illustrates Climate Security Risks
Late last year, the Chinese government announced its approval of a massive dam project along the Yarlung Tsangpo River in Tibet. The dam is estimated to eventually generate more than three times the kilowatt hours as the Three Gorges Dam, currently the world’s largest hydroelectric power center. Beijing has not released any information regarding the technology to be utilized, the construction timeline, or other infrastructure details for the Medog Hydropower Station. The region is prone to earthquakes and vulnerable to diminishing glacial melt due to rising temperatures. At the same time, the dam would significantly alter river flow for downstream nations, India and Bangladesh, impacting fresh water supplies, ecosystem dynamics, and more.
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Briefer: India’s Lithium Resources in Kashmir Highlight Conflict Risks Around Critical Minerals
By Tom Ellison
On February 9th, the Geological Survey of India announced1 it had discovered 5.9 million tons of lithium, a metal in high demand for electric vehicle batteries and other low-carbon energy technologies. Though the findings are preliminary, if borne out, the discovery would put India among the world’s top holders of lithium, with significant implications2 for India’s own electric vehicle (EV) deployment, environmental management, and energy independence. However, the potential reserves’ location in Jammu and Kashmir state—heavily militarized territory disputed by Pakistan—underscores the security challenges associated with critical mineral wealth. These challenges highlight the urgent need to prepare for the potential negative security repercussions of expanded mining in India and elsewhere, including via improved mining governance, new technologies, reduced lithium demand, and conflict resolution.
(more…)New Report: Melting Mountains, Mounting Tensions: Climate Change and the India-China Rivalry
By Rachel Fleishman and Sarang Shidore
See the associated India-China story map here.
In many parts of the world, climate change is a trigger for disaster. In some, it can also be a catalyst for conflict. On the India-China border, it has the potential to be both—exacerbating an already-fraught relationship with the potential for escalation to the nuclear plane.
Melting Mountains, Mounting Tensions: Climate Change and the India-China Rivalry is the first of a series of case studies integrating security analysis of instability and conflict involving nuclear-armed states with cutting-edge climate science. The outcome of a novel collaboration between the Converging Risks Lab of the Council on Strategic Risks and the Woodwell Climate Research Center, the case studies aim to raise awareness and flag the urgency of converging climate and nuclear risks at a time when the global security landscape is becoming more complex. Climate change is the main impetus for new Chinese hydropower projects in the Tibetan Plateau and in Pakistani-held Kashmir. The addition of clean energy to the Chinese grid will contribute to decarbonizing the economy. But Indian populations downstream in the Indus and Brahmaputra river basins worry that China will use its dams to manipulate water flow, inducing or worsening droughts and floods.
(more…)The Himalayan Hotspot: Diplomacy Needed to Address Environmental and Climate Security Risks
By Maya Saidel
Heightened militarization in the Himalayan region has impeded diplomatic and multilateral efforts to tackle critical climate issues endangering one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. In early June, at least 20 soldiers perished in a historic clash between Indian and Chinese troops along the disputed Himalayan border in Ladakh. This confrontation is the most recent deadly episode in a long history of border disputes between the two countries. The Line of Actual Control (LAC) demarcation, intended to designate which country controlls specific territory, was established after the Sino-Indian War in 1962. Yet, according to The Indian Express, efforts to clarify the exact location of the LAC in the Ladakh region have “effectively stalled since 2002.”
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