Cascading climate risks in Hindu Kush Himalaya

This policy brief by the Stockholm Environment Institute argues for the establishment of a regional cooperation mechanism to address cascading climate risks in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, emphasizing that climate impacts propagate across national borders and require collaboration beyond local and national scales.

• The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region, spanning from Afghanistan to Myanmar, is highly vulnerable to climate change due to its geography, population growth, and socio-political status. It serves as the source for twelve major river systems that support nearly two billion people.
• Cascading climate risks are impacts that propagate across national borders, affecting not only neighboring countries but also distant ones. In the HKH, these risks can originate both within and outside the region, threatening ecosystems, economies, and societies.
• Regional cooperation among state and non-state actors is essential for effective adaptation. Such collaboration can reduce climate action costs, overcome national resource constraints, increase the credibility of voluntary pledges, and improve climate diplomacy.
• The authors propose a regional cooperation mechanism for the HKH to avoid common failures of environmental mechanisms, such as lack of authority or poor implementation guidelines. This proposed mechanism would focus on four areas: research and knowledge exchange, governance and policy support, climate diplomacy and coalition building, and finance and implementation.

APA

Stockholm Environment Institute (2023). Cascading climate risks in Hindu Kush Himalaya. https://www.sei.org/publications/cascading-climate-risks-in-hindu-kush-himalaya/

Chicago

Stockholm Environment Institute. Cascading climate risks in Hindu Kush Himalaya. 2023. https://www.sei.org/publications/cascading-climate-risks-in-hindu-kush-himalaya/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Stockholm Environment Institute |title=Cascading climate risks in Hindu Kush Himalaya |date=1 September 2023 |url=https://www.sei.org/publications/cascading-climate-risks-in-hindu-kush-himalaya/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{stockholmenvironmentinstitute2023cascading, author = {{Stockholm Environment Institute}}, title = {{Cascading climate risks in Hindu Kush Himalaya}}, institution = {Stockholm Environment Institute}, year = {2023}, month = sep, url = {https://www.sei.org/publications/cascading-climate-risks-in-hindu-kush-himalaya/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }