When 14-year-old Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk knocked on the door of a stranger to ask if they had a copy of the 1995 comedy Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, he had no idea the person on the other side would make him a film star. That was in 1996, and the Bhutanese teenager was in Hong Kong on vacation. Little did he know that the person on whose door he knocked was a casting agent. The rest is geography.&nbsp; Within months, Wangchuk and his younger brother were on set shooting Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt. Chaperoned by their mother, both boys played the Dalai Lama in the movie.&nbsp; “I was honoured to get the chance,” says Wangchuk, now 41. That chance meeting eventually got Wangchuk into filmmaking in the US.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023060209068_3cda25464ba95e1997eca79d2fd72c689af9fe824c05a4d80fe74e355f30786c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2023060209068_3cda25464ba95e1997eca79d2fd72c689af9fe824c05a4d80fe74e355f30786c" data-rendition-name="original" width="2250" height="3275" loading="lazy" alt="Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk with Brad Pitt"> <figcaption>Young Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk with Brad Pitt. The two actors worked together for Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet.</figcaption> </figure>  In 2020 during the pandemic &nbsp;Wangchuk was cooped up in a studio apartment in New York. The isolation, and a bout of Covid infection, made him reevaluate his career and place in life. He decided to cycle from Thimphu to COP28 in Dubai to draw attention to the climate crisis and how it was affecting Himalayan people. “I feel fortunate to be able to combine my love for films with my passion for sports and travel, all the while championing the environment,” says Wangchuk, who spent his early years trekking through forests in Bhutan’s Pema Gatshel district with his father.&nbsp; In 2022, Wangchuk biked for a week, nine hours every day to reach Bhutan’s Thorthomi glacial lake, where the water level has to be drained to prevent it from bursting. He filled a bottle of water from the lake, and on 2 May began the first phase of his journey from Thimphu to India. Supported by the Kathmandu-based research institute, ICIMOD, he cycled across eastern Nepal, reaching Everest Base Camp 20 days later. There he met up with 22-time Everest summiteer Lhakpa Nuru, who had collected ice from the South Col for his mission.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023060209064_42a5130b18ca731580eedc477adaf1dea86a6b55a2de7db3c4a7fd1931bdae44.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2023060209064_42a5130b18ca731580eedc477adaf1dea86a6b55a2de7db3c4a7fd1931bdae44" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1536" loading="lazy" alt="Team NT"> <figcaption>Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk and team on Everest Base Camp. Photo: BEN CLARK/FACEBOOK</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;The ice joined the water collected from the glacial lake in Bhutan on the journey to Dubai. The bike journey so far has been a 'warm up' in more ways than one. &nbsp;Last month several Asian cities recorded all-time high temperatures. The heat of the plains made Wangchuk dizzy, forcing him to make several unplanned stops. “We learned the hard way that riding in the heat and pollution can be detrimental to health,” he notes. To avoid this, he starts out early, and takes a break during the intense mid-day heat. &nbsp; Wangchuk will soon begin the second phase of his journey cycling across India and Pakistan. He has not yet figured out how to cross the Arabian Sea to Oman. &nbsp; “There will be more extreme heat to justify why I’m riding to COP28 to take the messages of &nbsp;Himalayan communities being unfairly impacted by climate change,” he says. &nbsp; Climate summits like the one in Dubai are notorious for being talkfests, and the 2023 event is being held in UAE, a country that is a major exporter of fossil fuel. Says Wangchuk: “COPs have failed to set a concrete and time-bound target to phase out all fossil fuels and meet the zero-emission vehicle sales targets. But this should not deter us from pressuring world leaders and corporations to be accountable.”

Shristi Karki

original

674x448

610x380

500x500

400x266

400x240

400x203

301x200

1250x600

1084x550

Cycling to COP28

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20230228150232/63fe10889c7e80680e0da49ejpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo: Kunda Dixit</figcaption></figure>As global warming melts glaciers across the planet, governments and environmentalists from the Arctic Circle to the Himalaya are getting together to cope with the crises to come.The Himalaya is called ‘The Third Pole’ because it is <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-climate-crisis-is-a-water-crisis-in-the-himalaya/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the largest source of water</a> stored as ice after the polar regions. But unlike the Arctic and Antarctica, the Himalayan mountains is also the source of fresh water for about 2 billion people living downstream.The climate crisis is causing the Himalayan ice cap and its <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/walking-the-talk-on-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">glaciers to heat up</a> 0.7oCelsius faster than the global average. Scientists predict at the current rate of warming, two-thirds of the remaining ice will be gone during this century.Fragile mountain communities are also affected by weather extremes like intense torrential downpours that unleash flashfloods, prolonged droughts, erratic monsoons, and glacial lake outburst floods. Unable to cope, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/unthinkable-in-the-current-climate/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">climate refugees</a> are migrating from the region.Countries in the Himalaya and Tibetan Plateau have tried to work together to adapt to climate-induces crises, but geopolitical tensions have stymied these efforts. Clashes often erupt between India and China along their disputed Himalayan border. India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars since independence from Britain in 1947.However, the region could learn from the experience of the Arctic nations which also suffer from geopolitical tension, and are losing sea ice and the <a href="https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id=18353#.Y9uPMHZBy3A" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://archive.nepalitimes.com/news.php?id%3D18353%23.Y9uPMHZBy3A&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2lZPFIHYZpjMzJXHaiyr0J">Greenland ice sheet</a>.“When we started the Arctic cooperation more than 25 years ago, Russia was coming out of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the Cold War just ended,” recalls Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who served as Iceland’s president from 1996-2016, and is now chair of the <a href="https://www.arcticcircle.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.arcticcircle.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2oTDkFQnYy8E4yaKOiUoSk">Arctic Circle</a> initiative.Still, the Arctic nations, Russia, United States, Iceland, Greenland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and Finland were collaborating right up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.The Arctic and the Himalayan regions are similar because of their dependence on the cryosphere. While the Arctic has global powers like the US and Russia and smaller countries such as Iceland, Sweden, Finland, and Norway, the Himalayan region is dominated by China and India together with smaller <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/mustang-forced-to-adapt-to-climate-crisis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mountainous countries like Nepal</a> and Bhutan.In the Arctic, both the United States and Russia came to a joint realisation 25 years ago that they would both be affected by the melting of the ice in the Arctic. In fact, President Grímsson played a key role in mediating between the two superpowers.The Arctic Circle, since its founding in 2013, has demonstrated that multilevel cooperation in the Arctic is possible through its annual assembly in Iceland composed of over 2,000 experts and scientists from 70 countries.Apart from scientific and diplomatic cooperation, the Arctic Circle model also highlights the need to engage and include indigenous people, those who have inhabited the region for thousands of years.There have been attempts to link the Arctic and the Himalaya. In fact in 2012, Grimsson initiated the <a href="https://www.arcticcircle.org/third-pole-himalaya-the-process" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.arcticcircle.org/third-pole-himalaya-the-process&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2Q_4aEmYnDhmpSiBFW7ynj">Third Pole Environment Program</a>  with the University of Iceland, and later with India and Bhutan.The Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) served an important role in highlighting the impact of climate collapse on the mountains with the landmark 2019 publication, <a href="https://lib.icimod.org/record/34383" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://lib.icimod.org/record/34383&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2cXSFwBeYFCu4F63lfcrX2">Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment</a>.“However, efforts so far have been isolated,” Grimsson says. “They have not produced a systematic engagement at the highest level, which is why we have this initiative.”The host of this year’s Climate Summit (COP28), the United Arab Emirates, has decided to co-host the <a href="https://www.arcticcircle.org/third-pole-process" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.arcticcircle.org/third-pole-process&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw12rgY8FIl7gw2HFgmP7L5f">Third Pole Process</a> with the Arctic Circle to support collaboration and learning from the Arctic on regional cooperation and glacial studies.At COP27 in Sharm Al Sheikh in November, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment and the Arctic Circle hosted a dialogue on the Third Pole Process.About the next steps, the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment Mariam Al Mheiri told us: “What is really important is to convene the leaders of the Himalayan countries together to talk about how we can build, hopefully, a framework around the Third Pole Process.”The 2023 Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week last month was themed ‘Uniting the Global Community on the Road to Net-Zero: an Inclusive Energy Transition’, hoping to maintain momentum between COP27 and COP28.Grimsson is also hopeful that the initiative will enable not only Himalayan countries, but also the world to understand better the dramatic consequences of the melting of the glaciers in High Asia.The New York University Abu Dhabi’s eArtHumanities initiative, in collaboration with Rachel Carson Center, has also been working on the <a href="https://www.himalayanwaterproject.org/" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.himalayanwaterproject.org/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1675503971358000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2tRmDDmfBxD6Wg7t1NKYpC">Geopolitics and Ecology of Himalayan Water </a>project dealing with the climate and geopolitical hotspot.“This can be a fascinating new way for universities to create multidisciplinary cooperation in order to understand this important part of the world,” Grimsson says of the initiative.While international environmentalists have called the world’s top exporter of fossil fuel hosting a climate summit, and the head of it oil company being named president of COP28 as a “greenwash”, others have said it shows the need to engage with all partners.Indeed, Grimsson says: “This is a signal that the UAE is approaching the climate crisis in a new way”.The Arctic model of cooperation showed that it is possible to come together on the climate crisis despite geopolitical tension, and this holds important lessons for <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/the-third-pole-is-warming-faster-than-expected/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Third Pole</a>.

From the North Pole to the Third Pole

mainNavigation

footerNavigation

opinionSubnav

cop28

Cycling to COP28

From the North Pole to the Third Pole