Tibet’s Climate Crisis

This book offers one of the first comprehensive, policy-oriented examinations of the Tibetan Plateau as both a global climate regulator and an emerging geopolitical frontier, providing a holistic framework for understanding one of the world’s least examined, most consequential environmental crises yet.

Bringing together leading international scholars, policy practitioners, and regional experts, this volume argues that Tibet’s environmental transformation cannot be understood solely through the lens of climate change. Instead, it demonstrates how environmental governance, strategic infrastructure, resource extraction, militarization, demographic engineering, and hydro-politics have become integral instruments of China’s broader statecraft, with far-reaching consequences for Asia and the international order. Chapters reveal how the ecological deterioration of the Tibetan Plateau is increasingly intertwined with questions of regional security, water governance, climate diplomacy, and strategic competition. The book explores how developments around the “Third Pole” affect the future of Asia’s major river systems, food and water security, border stability, and the credibility of global climate governance. At its core, the volume contends that Tibet is no longer a peripheral environmental concern, but a central strategic issue with profound implications for the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Bridging a major gap in contemporary scholarship and policy debate, this book serves as an indispensable resource for researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of environmental politics, security studies, and East Asian studies. Policymakers, strategic planners, and climate negotiators exploring how environmental change on the Tibetan Plateau is reshaping geopolitics, regional security, and the future of global climate governance will also benefit.