Asian Development Bank’s call to action on Glacial Melt:

Interview with Lance Gore, ADB Principal Water Resources Specialist

5 Oct 2024 by The Water Diplomat

On the 24th of August, at Stockholm Water Week, The Water Diplomat caught up with Mr Lance Gore, Principal Water Resources Specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to discuss the ADB’s call to action on glacial melt and the bank’s promotion of climate resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalaya mountains, a mountain range that stretches over 3,500 km and across eight countries in Central and South Asia.

The Water Diplomat: Could we perhaps start by sharing the mission and vision of the ADB and its current strategy with readers?

Lance Gore: The ADB, as a regional multi-lateral development bank, has been around since 1966, and is currently focussing on the implementation of its corporate Strategy 2030. This strategy is aimed at achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient and sustainable Asia and the Pacific in support of the social and economic development of member countries. The strategy has served to refocus and retarget the work of the ADB in as far as climate issues are concerned: across all of its investments, the ADB seeks to act in line with the principles of the Paris Agreement.

The ADB maximizes the development impact of its assistance by facilitating policy dialogue, providing technical advisory services, and mobilizing financial resources through grants and lending for both sovereign and private sector operations. Since 2019, a special focus on climate issues such as climate resilience and climate adaptation and mitigation has been rolled out.

The bank has adopted a new way of working whereby a higher percentage of its workforce is being outposted to the regions in order to be more responsive to its developing member countries.

Focusing on climate resilience, the ADB President, Masatsugu Asakawa, in his speech at the Bandung Spirit Water Summit – a high level panel session of the 10th World Water Forum Bali, Indonesia, from 18 to 25 May 2024 – made clear that we must direct our attention to the multi-hazard threats resulting from glacial melt in the Hindu Kush Himalaya Mountains as well as in the Caucasus – more specifically in Armenia and Georgia.

Our president’s speech in Bali followed on from COP 28, where the ADB announced a new initiative called Building Adaptation and Resilience in the Hindu Kush Himalayas. In partnership with the governments of Bhutan and Nepal, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), IWMI and ICIMOD, this initiative focuses on ways to increase the climate resilience of these countries, given that the glaciers in this region are warming three times faster than the global average. By the end of the century, it is expected that 75% of the region’s glaciers will have disappeared.

The glaciers stretch from Afghanistan to Myanmar, and because of their extent, they are considered the third largest mass of ice outside the Arctic and Antarctica, and therefore also referred to as the world’s ‘Third Pole’. The recognition of the impact of the melting glaciers must gain momentum as we approach 2025, which has been declared the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.

A recent example of the threat that glacial melt poses, was the Melamchi flood disaster that occurred in 2021. This caused loss of life and partially destroyed a major piece of infrastructure that was built to divert water to the Kathmandu Valley, disrupting regular water supply during monsoon season, and threatening much-needed water security in the valley. This event alerted the ADB teams as to what might happen in the future. ADB is now wanting to get ahead of disasters like this and – in cooperation with national governments – is working on better understanding the risks in this region in terms of droughts, flooding, landslides and earthquakes, and how to make these areas more resilient – also in the countries beyond Bhutan and Nepal.

The Water Diplomat: So, in this work, are you looking more into making existing infrastructure more climate resilient, or are you developing new infrastructure?

Lance Gore: Through an envisaged risk assessment, the hot spots in the two countries are being identified, which would be followed by the development of solutions for the existing infrastructure, as well as the development of new infrastructure. For example, to rectify the impact of the Melamchi disaster and build in resilience, the team is considering diversifying risk by constructing multiple water intakes in other watersheds, with a taskforce team consisting of, among others, hydrogeologists and earthquake specialists on the ground.

The Water Diplomat: You started this work in Bhutan and Nepal, is the vision of ADB to expand beyond these countries?

Lance Gore: Indeed, our work has started in Bhutan and Nepal, but we will be seeking to expand these activities throughout the region.

The Water Diplomat: How do the finances actually work? How do you support project preparation, and how does one put business proposals for ecosystem protection into place?

Lance Gore: For the work in Bhutan and Nepal, grant technical assistance from ADB and SDC is being used to engage the expert consultants who will support ADB and the governments in conducting the upstream multi-hazard assessments. This assistance also aims to identify innovative financing mechanisms for both capital and operational expenditures, ensuring that infrastructure investments are resilient and sustainable. For example, options are being explored around providing blended financing to incentivise private sector involvement, incentivising public-private partnerships arrangements, and attracting private financing through the insurance industry and market-based mechanisms.

The Water Diplomat: Which institutions are requesting the financing: are we talking about national governments? Additionally, does ADB work with a sort of readiness fund, in the way that the Green Climate Fund does, to support the development of the proposals themselves?

Lance Gore: On the sovereign side of our business, ADB works with national governments and their provincial or state governments. This includes their line ministries and departments, which can include state-owned utilities. ADB supports these government agencies to prepare their investments, and we can provide either grant transactional technical assistance funds or lend project readiness financing funds, depending on the country’s requirements.

The Water Diplomat: In terms of expansion beyond the two countries, is there a roadmap drafted and do countries express interest?          

Lance Gore: Yes, Tajikistan has expressed interest for similar support and we’re currently working with the Green Climate Fund to support similar initiatives under the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) Water Pillar. The Central Asian countries probably rely more on ice-melt than compared to their South Asian neighbours because they don’t benefit from monsoon seasons.

 

The impact of glacial melt is not only being felt in the short term through catastrophic floods. There will also be significant long-term impacts that will also impact water security within the downstream basins, with direct implications for food security.

For example, in the Indus basin, some 80% of the water used for food production comes from ice-melt. The long-term loss of that ice will have significant implications for local crop production, livelihoods, and economies. The Third Pole sits at the top of 10 major river basins that cover most of mainland Asia. These basins are home to about 2 billion people and produce up to one-third of the globe’s production of food staples. They are also home to a significant portion of global industries. Hence, the consequences will not only be felt locally, but regionally and internationally.

At this stage, we want to understand the science better. This will include updating climate change projections, snow melt projections, and understanding the likely changes in monsoon. In basins like the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, water users are already heavily tapping into the groundwater, which is currently in a dire state itself. So, we need to think of what happens when these two crises collide crises: both declining groundwater reserves and the melting of glaciers. This will inform long-term water balance assessments and impact on cropping systems. And then we will look at the integrated economic impact because these are all tradable commodities.