Letter from the Editors
The climate crisis is already upon us.
Welcome to the November 2021 issue of The Diplomat Magazine.
As this issue launched, leaders and activists from around the world were gathering in Glasgow for the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26. This year’s conference is seen as the most important since the Paris climate agreement was settled in 2015. As the lived reality of a changing climate becomes more and more obvious, leaders are under increasing pressure to address the crisis through urgent and decisive action.
This issue looks at the wide variety of environmental issues at play in the Asia-Pacific, from water scarcity and plummeting fishing stocks to greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy. As the articles in the following pages show, the climate crisis is already upon us – but things will get much worse unless governments take a strong stance now.
In our cover story, Varsha Venkatasubramanian, a doctoral student in history at UC Berkeley, dissects an agreement often held up as a paragon of far-sighted environmental diplomacy: The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) between India and Pakistan. But while the IWT served as a short-term bridge, it left many issues unsettled, and the arrangements it did make are increasingly challenged by sharp changes in both water supply and demand since the treaty was signed in 1960. As Venkatasubramanian writes, “It is imperative that India and Pakistan come up with a plan to rewrite a water-sharing agreement that does not try to hide the problems of mismanagement, climate change, and rising water demand” – before the now-fragile IWT breaks apart completely.
Then we turn to the sea, where it’s unclear whether another agreement – the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – can continue to promote conservation and sustainability in a world much changed since its negotiation in the 1970s and ‘80s. Elizabeth Mendenhall, an assistant professor in the Department of Marine Affairs at the University of Rhode Island, focuses attention on the lessons to be taken from the successes and weaknesses of management of fisheries in the central and western Pacific. Although the region faces many challenges, cooperation and coordination among Pacific states and external powers has been critical to keeping fisheries at sustainable levels.
Our next two articles look at the complicated trade-offs between environmental action and economics. Gabriela Bernal, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, points out that North Korea, with an economy already severely strained by sanctions and the country’s own COVID-19 border shutdown, can ill afford to add climate disasters to the mix. Bernal outlines North Korea’s climate change mitigation plans, but notes there are serious questions about Pyongyang’s ability and will to fulfill those promises. It’s clear that environmental issues remain low on North Korea’s priority list, despite a series of damaging natural disasters in 2020 and 2021.
In our final lead, James Guild, an expert in economic development in Southeast Asia and a regular Diplomat contributor, explains how the political economies of Southeast Asian states impact the transition to renewable energy. Guild highlights the divergent examples of Thailand and Indonesia. Thailand has been one of Southeast Asia’s most proactive pursurers of renewables – but only after its own domestic energy sources began to run dry. Meanwhile, Indonesia has at least 50 years left of a stable coal supply. Convincing Jakarta to abandon its reliance on this plentiful domestic resource is going to be a tall order.
We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.