The Hauser Symposium

Meltdown: The Impact of Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau

About the Symposium

Most of Asia's major rivers find their source on the Tibetan plateau. However as the global temperature rises, Tibet’s glaciers are melting and grassland permafrost is thawing at an alarming rate.

Featuring keynote speaker IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, distinguished glaciologists Lonnie Thompson and Yao Tandong, environmental experts from China, the UK, the US, Australia, and the Tibetan Autonomous Region, as well as mountaineer and filmmaker David Breashears, this symposium will look at the effects of these changes on the millions living downstream in China and Southeast Asia who are dependent on the waters of such rivers as the Yangtse, the Yellow River, the Mekong, the Salween, the Irrawaddy, the Indus, and the Brahmaputra for their water supply.

Co-sponsors of the symposium: Council on Foreign Relations; Asia Society Center on US-China Relations; Chinadialogue;  and The Modern Tibetan Studies Program, Columbia University.

Thank you to Rita Hauser, the Arthur Ross Foundation, and the Henry Luce Foundation for their support.

No publications were found for this project.