Hopefully, the debates this year will focus beyond energy transition and into the ways to control extensive damage caused by human actions and greed for more resources and power, particularly in politically and ecologically sensitive regions like the Tibetan Plateau. The international community, including decision-makers and the private and public sectors, needs to be involved in regional cooperation ventures in the Himalayas to ensure accountability, maintain transparency, and take responsibility.

Last but not least, the world’s leaders will do well to remember what the Dalai Lama cautioned nearly thirty years ago about developing a “greater sense of universal responsibility” for global well-being and solving environmental problems—words to live by.

Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden, and a Professor at the University of Warsaw.

Ana Carolina De Oliveira Assis is a Project Coordinator for the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP), Sweden.

This piece is an outcome of ISDP’s Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) research project titled “China’s Himalayan Hustle.”

Image: Shutterstock.com.