THE FRAMEWORK OF THE XVI SAARC SUMMIT's ENVIRONMENTAL APPROACH
By, Pedro Lara de Arruda.
Introduction
The 2010 Summit of South-Asia Regional Cooperation (SAARC) in Thimphu (Buthan) has been considered a unique moment in the history of regional policies toward environmental protection and climate change preventive measures. Despite the fact that the very theme of the meeting was directly and explicitly addressing the environmental cause as it main goal - “Towards a green and happy South-Asia”, it was also markable that the previous SAARC comuniques and pronunciations regarding good practices on environmental issues finally took the first step in the direction of becoming more binding agreements, specially in light of the SAARC Convention in Cooperation on Environment (which was signalled by all the countries but still waits for the ratification).
Despite the cognitive value of launching one such distinguished agenda centred on issues like well-being and environmental protection, what certainly affects the cultural strengths behind the policy-making processes in all the levels (domestic, regional, and even global), there's also the necessity of acknowledging the shift from the previous soft approach given by the SAARC to environmental issue to a more committed one, which even expressed the conscious will of extending the South-Asian agenda to international organizations and global negotiations on that issue (like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process – UNFCCC). To notice one such shift in the SAARC approach to environmental issues one must first take a look to the historical approach of the organization on the issue.
Early approaches to environmentalism in the history of SAARC
As early as 1987 the Heads of State or Government of SAARC were already addressing in a systematic way the necessity to intensify regional cooperation for preserving, protecting and managing the ecosystems of the region, which are well known for its diversity as well as for its fragility. Besides this natural condition of fragility framing the South-Asian environmental reality – marked in the risk of Himalayan melting and subsequent flood of Bangladesh, by the delicate river sharing between Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, or else by the over-exposure of the Maldives to tide and ocean variations –, the debates held through the SAARC organization still in its early days raised an early consciousness regarding the intensification of such process which could be represented by abnormal phenomenas caused by deregulated human activities, like the Global Warm and the Greenhouse Effects, as well as environmental disasters caused by both, human intervention and natural causes (SAARC, 2010a). Also relevant to mention, this early acknowledgements were already aware that the environmental loss should be also accounted regarding their direct effects on harming the sovereignty and development capabilities of the affected countries, therefore unfolding the path for the securitization of environmentalism in the region. Here, it's important to notice the early securitization of environmentalism under the SAARC by avoiding further brute critiques on the SAARC as a merely rhetorical institution without no real and concrete effects since the very non-material process of securitization is much more a matter of cognitive processes and cultural formation which, however, can lead to undeniable material outcomes as, for instance, the inclusion of certain marginalized issues in the top of the state agenda – as is being the case with environmentalism.
The institutionalization process
A landmark on the institutionalization of the SAARC approach to environmentalism according to our previous description come in this very year of 1987, during the Third SAARC Summit, held in Kathmandu (Nepal), from November the 2nd to the 4th. As an outcome of the debates and expression of this shared perceptions mentioned above the Summit demanded a study on Natural Disasters and Environment Preservation, entitled: “Regional Study on the Causes and Consequences of Natural Disasters and the Protection and Preservation of the Environment”. This study would be carried by many specialists and its final report would come out only in 1991. The exert bellow brings out its Terms of Reference:
Country-wise identification and study of natural disasters, their nature, extent, causes and consequences;
Country-wise identification of different aspects of environmental degradation, the causes thereof and their implications for natural disasters which undermine the development process;
Country-wise survey of existing programmes for (a) the management of disasters including prevention/mitigation/ relief and rehabilitation; and, (b) the protection, conservation and restoration of the environment;
Identification of specific areas of national priority requiring further action;
Identification of common areas of regional concern; and,
Identification of measures and programmes at the regional level, for strenghtening disaster management capabilities and for the protection and preservation of the environment of the Member Countries to supplement national, bilateral, regional and global efforts.
(SAARC, 1991, p. 1-2)
Intensifying the importance of the environmental issues and in line with the global worries regarding the Global Warming effect, the 1988 SAARC Summit, held in Islamabad, in December, requested a joint study entitled, “Greenhouse Effect and its Impact on the Region” (SAARC, 1992), which was extremely technical and brought up valuable official knowledge to orient the policy-making towards some most serious challenges, such as:
Sea level rise: A 1m sea level rise due to global warming is likely to cause major problems in the intensely utilized and densely populated coastal plains producing coastline recession of up to several kilometers, submergins coastal villages and depriving many people of their land and resources. Some of the island countries in the world may be affected seriously.
Tropical cyclones: As sea surface temperature raises, the ocean area which can spawn tropical cyclones (typhoons, hurricanes etc) is expected to increase. However, although the area of sea having temperature itself may increase in a warmer world. Some scientists argue that the intensity of these storms may increase.
Flood: Floods are already a major ongoing concern of many developing countries, and this problem may be exacerbated by global climatic change. Some climate model projections suggest that the greenhouse effect will enhance both ends of the hydrologic cycle, producing more instances of extreme rainfall as well as increased drought. In some instances, the expected rise of sea level may aggravate the vulnerability of coastal countries to submerge.
Drought or water shortages: As global warming occurs, frought may become a much greater problem. Global warming may be expected in some regions to lower the groundwater level, increase salinity due to the evaporation, decrease in surface of many lakes or inland waters ways, and drop in the water level of such bodies.
Loss of Biomass: A major threat to developing countries posed by global warming may be acceleration of depletion of biomass cover as a result of increased drought.
Rapid Thawing of the Permafrost: Climate models have generally projected that arctic and subarctic areas are likely to warm more rapidly than the average global temperature increase. Such a rapid warming would result in a significant thwing of the permafros in the subarctic, producing more disruption to buildings, roads and bridges, adversely affecting the stability of some existing structures and forcing changes in construction practice.
Migration and resettlement may be the most threatening short-term effects of climate change on human settlements... (SAARC, 1992, p. 17-18).
This study would be finished in 1992 and, along with the previous study on Natural Disaster they would last for many years as the main guidelines of environmental policies to be undertaken in the regional level.
Those early efforts to jointly produce information on environmental issues would very soon raise the importance of creating institutions to handle the suggested means of a joint environmental preventive care of the natural resources, as well as to act collectively on remedying the environmental disaster affecting the region. In light of the conclusion of the study required in 1988 and only one year after the study required in 1987 was also finished, the SAARC established a general Technical Committee on Environmental issues and a specific Technical Committe on Environment and Forestry (SAARC, 2010a).
The general Committee on Environment originally had a mandate to monitor the progress made in the implementation of the recommendations of the two Regional Studies, particularly aiming at: Examining the recommendations of the Regional Studies; identifying measures for immediate action; and deciding on modalities for the implementation. Latter on, however, this original mandate would be expanded to update new environmental issues and new mechanisms and suggestions on handling them, of what the Dhaka Declaration and the Thimphu Statement on Climate Change would be representatives (SAARC, 2010a).
The specific Technical Committe, however, was first launched aiming only the implementation of measures suggested in the 1991 study - “Regional Study on the Causes and Consequences of Natural Disasters and the Protection and Preservation of the Environment” -, which basically concerned identifying measures for immediate action and deciding modalities for implementation of those particular issues addressed in the study of 1991. However, this specific Committe further extended its mandate to the implementation of measures mentioned in the 1992 study - “Greenhouse Effect and its Impact on the Region”, and, in many aspects started overlapping responsibilities with the general Technical Committee, even though the Technical Commission remained much more concerned with practical technical issues than with political decisions, which were a main duty of the the general Committee (SAARC, 2010a).
As part of the same expansion process which somehow merged the general Committe with the Technical Committe, the Technical Committee was further given the responsibility of carrying out measures to implement good practices on the fields of meteorology and forestry, what would lead to the formal merging of this Comittee with a third one, not originally under the umbrella of the SAARC environmental mechanisms and still not mentioned here – the Technical Committee on Science and Technology. This last merge would come into practice in 2004 despite have being approved in 2003 under the restructured Regional Integrated Programe of Action (RIPA) launched by the Twenty-ninth Session of the Standing Committee in Islamabad (December, 2004). A clear understand of the precise mandate of those merged institutions is given by the SAARC official website just as follows:
Since 2004, the Technical Committee on Environment and Forestry has met three times in June 2004, May 2006 and January 2009. The sectoral mandate of the Technical Committee comprises of environment, forestry and natural disasters. In addition to the Terms of Reference outlined under Article VI of the SAARC Charter, the Technical Committee follows-up on the implementation of decisions taken by SAARC Charter Bodies (Summit, Council of Ministers, Standing Committee) and the SAARC Environment Ministers. The coordination and monitoring of the implementation of the 1997 SAARC Environment Action Plan; and SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change (July 2008) are also entrusted to the Technical Committee. The Fourth Meeting of the Technical Committee on Environment and Forestry [took] place in Thimphu, Bhutan on 17-18 May 2011. (SAARC, 2010a)
Parallel to those Committees the Environment Ministers of the SAARC members also started to meet periodically since 1992 with the precise objective of following the progress and further enhance regional cooperation in the areas of environment, climate change and natural disasters, specially regarding the Study Recommendations and the Committee implementation measures. Since 1992 the SAARC Environment Ministers have met nine times besides their presence in the Special Session of the Environment Ministers in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean Tsunami (Malé, 2005) and in the SAARC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change (Dhaka, 2008).
One of the most important of the nine Environment Ministerial Meetings already held by SAARC was the Third one, held in Male (1997). At that occasion they approved and Environmental Action Plan which strengthened the comprehensive approach of the previous two studies and also updated issues of concern to the SAARC members, besides unfolding some line of patterns to foster further implementation of measures (SAARC, 2010a).
Here it's important to note how relevant were the technical issues raised by this Environmental Action Plan and their respective mechanisms of implementation, which are largely recognized as successful for they soon originated concrete institutions such as: The SAARC Coastal Zone Management Center (SCZMC), which was established 2004 to promote cooperation in planning, management and sustainable development of coastal zones, including research, training and awareness in the region; the SAARC Forestry Center (SFC), which was established in Thimphu in 2007 for the protection, conservation and prudent use of forest resources by adopting sustainable forest management practices through research, education and coordination among Member States; the South-Asia Environment Outlook (SAEO) which was finalized in 2009, during the Eight Meeting of the SAARC Environment Ministers, in collaboration with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP); and, through more indirect ways, even the SAARC Convention on Cooperation on Environment as stipulated under Item 17 (Legal Framework) of the Action Plan, which was signed during the Sixteenth SAARC Summit (2010) and will enter into force after being ratified by all Member States.
Of special relevance to the XVI SAARC Summit was the 8th Environment Ministerial Meeting held in Delhi (2009), for it adopted the Delhi Statement on Cooperation in Environment which identifies many critical areas that need to be addressed and reaffirms the commitment of Member States towards enhancing regional cooperation in the area of environment and climate change. Some of the main points of this document were summed in the Delhi Statement of which some exerts follow bellow:
Environmental Planning & Management
1. The Ministers recognized the critical importance of effective planning and management of environmental protection systems, including environmental pollution, and conservation of aquatic and marine ecosystems. They emphasized the need for cooperation in devising measures to develop capability for enhanced environmental management.
2. The Ministers appreciated and acknowledged the support of India in SAARC Meteorological Research Centre (SMRC) and reaffirmed the decision of SMRC to set up a network of SAARC weather stations to monitor weather patterns, especially storms, across the member states, starting with the establishment of fifty automatic weather stations, three GPS Sonde Stations and a Doppler Radar in Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh in the first phase. Afghanistan and Pakistan would be covered in second phase with Maldives and Sri Lanka in the third phase. They directed that the deployment of this network across other member states be accelerated.
3. The Ministers agreed to accelerate consultations between the apex environmental management and pollution control agencies of the Member States (“apex group”), and directed that they develop a Regional Cooperation Plan on environmental management and pollution control within a period of six months from the date of adoption of this statement.
Biodiversity and Afforestation
4. The Ministers noted the critical need to conserve, preserve, rehabilitate and protect the rich, varied and unique biodiversity of the South Asia region. They noted the need for biodiversity protection and regulation, including through scientific methods.
5. The Ministers re-affirmed the importance of the region’s forests as a unique treasure, both for their rich biodiversity and for the livelihood they provide to the forest-dependent people of South Asia. They emphasized the need to give a new impetus to afforestation and the sustainable management of forests and its resources, including through community- based methods.
6. The Ministers emphasized the need to identify transboundary biodiversity zones and develop a framework for transboundary biodiversity conservation, including exploration of potential biodiversity conservation corridors. The Ministers directed the Technical Committee on Environment to examine the Concept and develop a framework for consideration of member states within a period of six months thereof.
7. The Ministers underlined the need for afforestation and sustainable management of forests to be an integral part of any agreement on forestry that is concluded under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They emphasized that the “REDD Plus” proposal before the UNFCCC is an appropriate basis for such an agreement.
Climate Change
8. The Ministers recognized that the South Asia was amongst the regions most vulnerable to climate change. They stressed that sustainable development and adaptation to Climate Change remained the
appropriate way to address the threat of climate change. They agreed that it was central, including through acceleration of the development process, to build up capacity in the region to cope with the extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change.
9. The Ministers recalled the SAARC Declaration on Climate Change adopted by the Twenty-ninth Session of the Council of Ministers held in New Delhi on 7-8 December 2007, and emphasized the SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change adopted by the SAARC Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change held in Dhaka held on 3 July 2008, wherein specific areas of possible actions by the Member States were identified.
10. The Ministers welcomed the proposal by Bhutan to adopt ‘Climate Change’ as the key theme of the Sixteenth SAARC Summit to be held in Thimphu in April 2010 and also noted the concept paper prepared for the Summit.
11. The Ministers underlined the crucial importance of close cooperation in the run-up to the UN Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen, with a view to enabling the full, effective and sustained implementation of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). They also underscored the need to fully implement the commitments under the Convention in accordance with its principles, especially that of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
12. The Ministers also noted the importance of the High Level Conference on Technology Development and Transfer organized by the Government of India in cooperation with UNDESA and expressed hope that this will be an important contribution to the agreed outcomes at Copenhagen.
13. The Ministers recommended that the Member States may undertake cooperation with respect to adaptation, supported with resources as mutually agreed, to address the adverse effects of climate change.
14. In particular, the Ministers underscored the need to undertake and enhance cooperation in areas related to environment amongst the Member States in order to have a coordinated response to climate change. To this end, the Ministers agreed to institutionalize an annual workshop – a South Asia Workshop on Climate Change Actions (SAWCCA). The Ministers welcomed the offer of the Government of India to host the first workshop in early 2010.
(SAARC, 2009).
SAARC, the region and the globe
Concerning the already mentioned growing importance of the environmental issues on the South-Asian agenda and its subsequent extension to international forums one can point to the systemic joint positions taken in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change process. In December 2009, Sri Lanka was the representative of a SAARC common position in the COP 15 and it echoed early positions held in the SAARC Summits, in the Environment Ministerial Meetings and also the Statement that the Permanent Representatives of Members States of SAARC, based in New York, launched at the eve of the COP 15 (SAARC, 2010a). In an even more institutionalized and strong position, the SAARC got the right of taking part in the COP 16 as formal observer member, and the Bhuthanese Chair representing the SAARC in the occasion presented the common SAARC position previously written by an Intergovernmental meeting specially aimed at COP 16, which was demanded in the XVI SAARC Summit in Thimphu (2010) (SAARC, 2010a).
Despite the UNFCCC, SAARC has also expanded the role of its environmental approach through other forums and mechanism such as: Its signature of the Memoranda of Understanding with the South Asia Cooperative Environment Programme (SACEP) in July 2004; its link with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in June 2007, as well as with the collaboration with the United Nations International Strategy on Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) in September 2008 (SAARC, 2010a).
The prominent role played under the umbrella of SAARC at those international forums and organizations were also an outcome of a regional process of increasing attention paid to the specific issue of the Climate Change. Both, recurrent and catastrophic natural disasters affecting South Asian countries as a direct effect of the climate change, and the global wake up for the reality of the alert after the UN Panel for Climate Change was made public, contributed largely to the landmark that was the Dhaka Declaration and the SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change.
The issue of Climate Change and South-Asian vulnerability
Under one such framework the Fourteenth SAARC Summit (Delhi, 2007) expresses “deep concern” over the climate change and called for “pursuing a climate resilient development in South Asia”. This claim received great consideration at the Twenty-ninth session of the SAARC Council of Ministers, held in Delhi in December of the same year. Evaluating the extension of the impacts caused by recent natural disasters in South Asian countries and recognizing that the causes of such phenomena were not restricted to only national or regional actions they made the claim for reducing the South-Asian countries vulnerability and at the same time to work globally to ensure the reasons behind the Climate Changes themselves. Such demands were soon materialized in a material Plan of Action written in 2008 by the Ministerial Meeting on Climate Change, which was held in Dhaka, following a previous technical meeting – the Expert Group Meeting on Climate Change – which have met at the same place only two days before (July the 1st and the 2nd) (SAARC, 2010a).
Among the main lines of action predicted in the 2008 Plan of Action one must highlight the stress on the necessity of States to promote massive awareness on the already known facts regarding the climate change, which aimed both, the domestic society and the inter-State exchange of knowledge and good practices as well. States were also urged to cooperate in capacity building projects to the extent of CDM and DNA projects, as well as to impose measures against GHG by sinks, among other aspects in line with the Dhaka declaration, which main lines are bellow:
1. Commit ourselves to promote programmes for advocacy and mass awareness raising on climate change and to inculcate habits towards a low carbon society, including incorporation of climate change and related science-based educational material in educational curricula, as per SAARC procedure and practices.
2. Resolve to cooperate on climate change issues for capacity building, including the development of CDM projects and DNA and on incentives for removal of GHG by sinks, and exchange of information of best practices, sharing of the results of research and development for mitigating the effects of climate change and undertaking adaptation measures, and for enhancing south-south cooperation on technology development and transfer, as per established SAARC norms.
3. Agree to initiate and implement programmes and measures as per SAARC practice for adaptation for dealing with the onslaught of climate change to protect the lives and livelihood of our people for food, water and energy securities and call upon Annex-I countries to fulfill their commitments as per UNFCCC for providing additional resources.
4. Further commit ourselves to implement the SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change.
5. Adopt this Declaration and the SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change.
(SAARCS, 2008, p. 2)
A big role was also kept for the necessity of developing means of handling individuals affected by climate change outcomes in ways to assure their livelihood, even recalling the individual and collective responsibility of the States assumed before the UNFCCC. This mention to the UNFCCC would be extremely meaningful for its immediate effect of lending the SAARC institutional legitimacy and authority to endorse some aspects of the UNFCCC signed by the South-Asian countries, and also for its further effects of setting the basis for the formal recognition of the SAARC as an observer member in the UNFCCC COP 16 in 2010 (as we have already mentioned before).
In what is seen as an update of the Dhaka document of 2008, the SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change 2009-2010 identified seven thematic areas of cooperation, which are: “Finance and investment; education and awareness; management of impacts and risks; and capacity building for international negotiations”. Departing from those acknowledgements the Action Plan lists technical measures and line policies on the following issues: “Capacity building for CDM projects; exchange of information on disaster preparedness and extreme events; exchange of meteorological data; capacity building and exchange of information on climate change impacts (e.g. sea level rise, glacial melting, biodiversity and forestry); and mutual consultation in international negotiation process as the Priority Action Plan” (SAARC, 2010a).
As we have already mentioned, much of the measures taken into a Summit and Ministerial level were not only the reflex of the 'Global Awakening for the risks of Global Warming and other Environmental issues', but also and to a large extent an outcome of the local and regional experiences involving environmental catastrophes. Among those events one should remark the large damages caused by the December 2004 tsunami and the December 2005 earthquake. Just following the tsunami there was a Special Session of the SAARC Environment Ministers in Malé (June, 2005) which adopted the Malé Declaration on Collective Response to Large Scale Natural Disasters (2005) further supplemented by the Comprehensive Framework on Disaster Management – which has a mandate lasting until 2015 (SAARC, 2010a).
It's important to note that the effect of the over-exposure of the South-Asian countries to natural disasters not only stimulated the alignment of SAARC and its member countries within the Global efforts to establish best practices on environmental issues, but also lead those countries to use the SAARC as instrument for creating some of the most practical regional institutions to handle such kind of incidences. The just referred Comprehensive Framework on Disaster Management is a clear example of this dual role of the reaction-measures of SAARC regarding regional disasters in a sense that it is undeniably global – aligned of the Hyogo Framework and at the roots of the UNFCCC – but also regionally independent since it's giving birth to concrete autonomous and original institutions such as those being confectioned by the SAARC members on their National Plans of Action and the SAARC Disaster Management Center (SDMC).
The SDMC was established in New Delhi in October 2006 and originally provided policy advices and measures to facilitate capacity building including strategic learning, research, training, system development, expertise promotion and exchange of information for effective disaster risk reduction and management. At the XV SAARC Summit (Colombo - 2008) it was suggested that the SDMC should be expanded to include a Natural Disaster Rapid Response Mechanism and, as the Inter-governmental meeting held in May 2011 at the Maldives managed to present a final proposal, it's opening for signature may happen in the XVII Summit scheduled to be held at November this year, also in the Maldives (SAARC, 2010a).
The Thimphu Meeting
With one such background the centring of the official focus of the last SAARC Summit on climate change (XVI Summit) is far less surprising than it could be if simply taken out of context. After all, the regional experience of South-Asia has proven time and again that Environmental policies are a present and meaning reality which has devastated the national capability of many countries – e.g. 60% of the Maldives GDP were lost due to the last tsunami that affected it – and, in light of the still vulnerable social condition of its countries allied with the scenario-prone environment that characterizes the area, it can come to lead to even worst crisis.
This historical reading over the environmental approach of SAARC makes clear how the kind of disasters affecting the region are more linked with the specific theme of Climate Change, for which SAARC and its member countries have historically being key features even in global prominent structures such as the UNFCCC. Accordingly, the 2010 formal commitment on focusing the challenges for best policies regarding climate changes was nothing but a recognition of; the task which was increasingly growing on the previous meetings; the critical moment through which institutions like the Comprehensive Framework on Disaster Management were passing on their way to becoming fully operational; and also, of the great corridor that the issue represented for a SAARC global insertion. After all, it's no mistake that SAARC, as the representative of the acknowledged most affected region by Climate Changes, played a role in the COP 15 and, specially, in the COP 16, which is disproportional to its size in other fields (e.g. economics, military, technology, etc...).
Despite the disputing agendas which always impose theirselves over the official agenda of the SAARC Meeting, and in 2010 had that process intensified by the 'observer' participation of the U.S.A and China, the Thimphu meeting managed to produce a landmark document which updated most previous policies and plans of action, extended some institutional mandates and outlined a number of local and regional important initiatives with the potential of strengthening of the cooperation on climate change related issues. The exert bellow brings the totalitty of the prescriptions adopted in the document (excluding the preamble) – the Thimphu Statement on Climate Change:
(i) Review the implementation of the Dhaka Declaration and SAARC Action Plan on Climate Change and ensure its timely implementation;
(ii) Agree to establish an Inter-governmental Expert Group on Climate Change to develop clear policy direction and guidance for regional cooperation as envisaged in the SAARC Plan of Action on Climate Change;
(iii) Direct the Secretary General to commission a study for presentation to the Seventeenth SAARC Summit on ‘Climate Risks in the Region: ways to comprehensively address the related social, economic and environmental challenges’;
(iv) Undertake advocacy and awareness programs on climate change, among others, to promote the use of green technology and best practices to promote low-carbon sustainable and inclusive development of the region;
(v) Commission a study to explore the feasibility of establishing a SAARC mechanism which would provide capital for projects that promote low-carbon technology and renewable energy; and a Low-carbon Research and Development Institute in South Asian University;
(vi) Incorporate science-based materials in educational curricula to promote better understanding of the science and adverse effects of climate change;
(vii) Plant ten million trees over the next five years (2010-2015) as part of a regional aforestation and reforestation campaign, in accordance with national priorities and programmes of Member States;
(viii) Evolve national plans, and where appropriate regional projects, on protecting and safeguarding the archeological and historical infrastructure of South Asia from the adverse effects of Climate Change;
(ix) Establish institutional linkages among national institutions in the region to, among others, facilitate sharing of knowledge, information and capacity building programmes in climate change related areas;
(x) Commission a SAARC Inter- governmental Marine Initiative to strengthen the understanding of shared oceans and water bodies in the region and the critical roles they play in sustainable living to be supported by the SAARC Coastal Zone Management Center;
(xi) Stress the imperative of conservation of bio-diversity and natural resources and monitoring of mountain ecology covering the mountains in the region;
(xii) Commission a SAARC Inter- governmental Mountain Initiative on mountain ecosystems, particularly glaciers and their contribution to sustainable development and livelihoods to be supported by SAARC Forestry Center;
(xiii) Commission a SAARC Inter-governmental Monsoon Initiative on the evolving pattern of monsoons to assess vulnerability due to climate change to be supported by SAARC Meteorological Research Center;
(SAARC, 2010b).
Besides innovative, those measures come in a context somehow binding, or have the potential to become, for the same Summit Meeting established an Inter-governmental Expert Group on Climate Change (IGEC.CC) in charge of monitoring, reviewing the progress and making recommendations to enable the implementation of the measures contemplated in the Thimphu Statement. Having had its first meeting in June 2011, in Sri Lanka, the IGEC.CC highlighted 13 main points of debate which were widely in accordance with the IPCC (Inter-governamental Panel for Climate Change) as they recognized the biggest environmental risks threatening South-Asia as being those brought by the IPCC in 2007, and stressed the relevance of a Global Action in close assistant to the UNFCCC lines (SAARC, 2011). Worth of saying, their formal declaration included a brief historical framework which agreed on the view of this article regarding the contextual fitting of the 2010 Summit and it's Thimphu Setlement.
Still during the XVI SAARC Summit, a Convention on Cooperation on Environment was signed by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Member States and provided for cooperation in the field of “environment and sustainable development through exchange of best practices and knowledge, capacity building and transfer of eco-friendly technology in a wide range of areas related to the environment” (SAARC, 2010a). The fully implementation of one such Convention, however, still waits the ratification by the signatory states, a process which is been carried out with the support of a Governing Council comprised of Environment Ministers of Member States.
Another achievement of the Thimphu Meeting was the rather symbolic selection of Mr. Appa Sherpa, the twenty time Everest Summiteer as SAARC Goodwill Ambassador for Climate Change until 2012 (SAARC, 2010a). However punctual this fact may seems the fact is that in one such field as Climate Change the issue of perception and spread of knowledge is of utmost importance, therefore, one expects his regional recognition to help launching the awareness of Global Change among grasroots comunities in South-Asia, which, despite being largelly affected by the phenomenos, are still very alienated of the whole process and the current information avaiable on it. Besides, Mr. Appa Sherpa already plays a similar role in the World Food Programme, which makes large propaganda usage of the fact that he was benefitted by the Nepali distribution of food it carrie in the Everest Area.
Conclusion
In a short conclusion one can clearly notice how the SAARC approach walks towards the direction of more binding statements and agreements, what is regionally evident by the several institutions and agreements in the process of ratification, and globally noticed if one looks to the wide usage and reference of international agreements and mechanisms that South-Asian countries belong to, therefore creating some sort of unofficial binding for those countries. Even more important, the framework which settled up the importance of the Climate Change issue to the extent of being the official theme of a SAARC Summit can be understood as a well succeeded attempt of SAARC to hold itself the lines of the environmental policy to be carried out in the region instead of simply neglecting this agenda and enabling external elements to sett up the patters for South-Asia. Even though the SAARC involvement with the issue is clearly being carried out in a collaborative way with international agents and institutions, one must notice that still there's a clear guidance of the SAARC in this whole process and that, as already mentioned, the very external collaboration is being instrumentally taken as a tool for increasing capability and strengthening the binding power of the regional statements on the issue.
As for the predominance of discursive and cognitive achievements in this field one must not credit this to the so called inefficiency of the SAARC, if it in fact exists, but rather, it must be understood that the whole process of securitizing environmental issues is largely dependent on cognitive shifts. Therefore the non-material predominance of the achievements under the umbrella of SAARC should be acknowledged not only in comparison to similar realities being shared by basically all the other countries and regions but, most of all, it must be welcomed for the cognitive step is possibly the most definitive one in the process of definitely setting environmental preservation as a priority in International Relations and in traditional politics as a whole.
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