Pulitzer Center Untold Stories

Fasting for climate change

Pulitzer Center reporters William Wheeler and Anna Katarina-Gravgaard report to Time in "Fasting for Climate Change."

Watch video on the COP15 Dispatches blog.

Ticking clocks and stumbling blocs at Copenhagen

By William Wheeler

With only a week to go, negotiators at the Copenhagen climate summit say that longstanding divisions between industrialized and developing nations have so far proven insurmountable.

The fissures were clear at a press conference Friday morning, which featured delegates from India, China, Bangladesh, and the European Commission.

"After two years of negotiations, it came to me that we argue a lot between developing countries and developed countries but it boils down to one issue," said Chinese negotiator Qingtai Yu. “For the developed countries, when it comes to emissions space, the fundamental attitude is that 'what is mine is mine, but what I've taken away from you I've got to keep.' For us, the developing countries, our position is -- our emissions space is under occupation. And we want it back." Continue reading the full article at the Pulitzer Center's, "Dispatches from COP15."

Water flows into Bangladeshi slums

William Wheeler and Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

In Dhaka, Banglafesh’s capitol on track to become one of the world's biggest cities, hundreds of thousands of people fill in the urban fabric each year. Most end up in the slum communities -- crowded shantytowns without water or sanitation facilities. Often these are government lands usurped by "influential people," mafiosi-like business and political elite who then rent them out to newcomers.

 

We visited one such community where DSK, a local NGO with funding from water.org (Matt Damon's organization focused on water and sanitation in India and Bangladesh), provides microloans for facilities like latrines and water pumps. Huddled with more than a dozen people into a small single room beneath a corrugated metal roof in the summer heat, we listened as one community member outlined the illnesses in the slum, including scabies and waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery. Under the terms of the loan, a committee was formed (including women in prominent roles to empower them) and charged with identifying the illnesses in the community and carrying out health and sanitation education seminars. As we watched, the designated health worker laid out illustrations showing proper sanitation practices for cooking, cleaning, and washing, and she quizzed the group opn their hygiene practices.

 

Before the water pump and latrine were built, people had to leave the neighborhood in search of someone with a connection to the city water main in and pay them to fill up the buckets. With a loan of roughly $1500, they now had water and sanitation facilities within a few steps of the door.

Climate Migrants

William Wheeler, for the Pulitzer Center

Thursday, at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, Bangladesh’s prime minister called for assistance from the international community to help the country adapt  to the impacts of climate change, which, she said, could necessitate the relocation of 20 million Bangladeshis by 2050.

Bangladesh is currently ranked the world’s most vulnerable country to flooding, the 3rd most vulnerable country to tsunamis, and the 6th to cyclones. Already, increasingly erratic patterns of flood and drought threaten food security in the impoverished, densely populated nation. A one meter rise in sea levels, the prime minister said, could inundate one-third of the country, putting pressure on 40 million people and increasing migration into India. Bangladesh has established its own Climate Change Fund and recently appealed to the international community for $1 billion in adaption costs.

We're currently reporting from Dhaka, the crowded capitol where half a million Bangladeshis migrate each year, mostly from rural and coastal areas battered by the elements. We've spent some time with one such woman, a 25-year-old who moved to a Dhaka slum two years ago, after floods from a massive cyclone destroyed her home and the rice fields where her husband worked as a laborer.

In the loaded language of the debate over what to do about those most heavily impacted by climate change-- who are disproportionately found in the developing world where nations lack the financial and technological resources, and individuals lack the job skills, to adapt to the pressures imposed by climate change-- she and the many Bangladeshis like her moving to cities, or across the border into India, are alternately referred to as "climate refugees," or else as "migrants." Whatever you call them, though, Bangladeshis face an additional pressure to leave their rural villages in great numbers that distinguishes them from other populations caught up in the global trend of rapid urbanization: they already face a brutal assault of the elements likely to get worse as the planet warms.     

Click here to see a reporting dispatch from Dhaka:

100 Days to Copenhagen

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

As the world looks towards the December summit in Copenhagen, the Nepali government,World Bank, Asian Development Bank, DFID and Danish Embassy are arranging their own pre-Copenhagen negotiations for Himalayan nations. On August 31st and September 1st, representatives from the Himalayan region are scheduled to meet in Katmandu to debate and strengthen South Asian positions before the meeting in Copenhagen.

We’ve talked to Nepali experts on climate change and it’s impact on South Asia:

Executive Director of NGO Forum for Urban Water and Sanitation in Kathmandu talks about the conflicts brought on by water scarcity in Nepal:

Member of Nepali Parliament, Sunil Pant, talks about climate change and its impact on the poorest people of Nepal:

India Pre-Copenhagen Conference

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

India is making moves to protect its natural resources, instituting an environmental agency modeled after the US' own EPA, according to the Financial Times.

""The new push comes as India finds itself in the spotlight in the run up to December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, where world leaders are hoping to hammer out a successor to the Kyoto agreement," says the report. "India, China, and other developing countries are under pressure to come up with firmer plans to reduce emissions...  a state-commissioned report released this week showed that almost half of India's land was degraded, air pollution was a deepening threat to public health and water resources were shrinking."

Jyoti Sharma from the NGO FORCE on "The Five Rs of water conservation":

CE of WaterAid, Lourdes Baptista, on water management, quantity and quality in India:

Water Conflict -The Indus Treaty

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

This week, Pakistani intelligence officials complained that India has blocked off the rivers flowing into the country through Kashmir—an allegation, reports The Washington Post, that will likely keep troops along the Indian border even as the Pakistani army prepares for a major offensive against a powerful Taliban leader entrenched in its western westernmost region. Control of the rivers that run through the region has always been a potential source of conflict between the countries and, while the Indus Waters Treaty has long prompted both fears of a much-hyped nuclear water war, as well as optimism about the potential to solve such disputes through negotiations, water remains a strategic hurdle and potential spoiler to any peace process.

World Bank Water Adiviser David Grey talks about the water issues South Asia faces.
 

Mustafa Talpur, a water activist in Islamabad, talks about Pakistani water policies.

Indian Officials Declare Drought Worst Water Shortage in Mumbai’s History

Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

Twenty million residents of Mumbai, India’s largest city, are facing an acute water shortage, the BBC reports this week. Authorities have cut water supplies by 30 percent, due to shortages brought on by sporadic monsoon rainfall. If rain doesn’t come soon, agricultural production is likely to suffer and urban residents are worried they will have to buy water from private tankers. If the drought continues, the lakes that feed the city’s water supplies will continue to recede. Water supplies for swimming pools have been cut and authorities say they may have to turn to cloud seeding to produce rain.

Meanwhile, floods have displaced 500.000 people in the western state of Maharashtra. Climate experts warn that changes in the monsoon and increased flooding are likely to be exacerbated with climate change. Hear what experts think about what is happening and what needs to be done.  World Bank Water Adviser David Grey in New Delhi:

From the Langtang Himalayas

For the mountain people of the Langtang region, the recession of the Himalayan glaciers is an unexplained fact of life.

Learn more about this project at South Asia's Troubled Waters

And join the conversation by sharing your story about water here.

From Bouddha, Nepal

William Wheeler and Anna-Katarina Gravgaard, for the Pulitzer Center

Reporting from an Tibetan exile community in Nepal on renewable energy.

Learn more about this project at South Asia's Troubled Waters

And join the conversation by sharing your story about water here.