The Greater Mekong and climate change: biodiversity, ecosystem services and development at risk
This report calls for Asia's first regional climate change adaptation agreement in the Greater Mekong region, which, as one of the regions with richest biological diversity on the earth, is already strongly affected by climate change. It urges politicians to strike an ambitious and fair agreement on a climate treaty at upcoming talks in Copenhagen.
The report, "The Greater Mekong And Climate Change: Biodiversity, Ecosystem Services and Development at Risk," stressed that the region, covering an area of 600,000 square kilometers comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and southwestern provinces of China, is to undergo major changes caused by climate change.
This region provides home and life source to over 300 million local people. But it is also one of the most vulnerable places when exposed to climate change, especially because of its extensive coastlines and major deltas that are barely above mean sea level. Already sea level rise is threatening the region's coastal communities and changes to the climate are stressing ecosystems. Land is being lost in coastal zones, glacial melting in the Himalayas may impact the region's major river flows, and wetlands will either dry up or flood out. The report suggests, therefore, that a joint adaptation agreement be reached by the governments of the region as an essential first task to address climate change and to get more prepared for the inevitable impacts of it.