Invitation to disaster?

India has raised concerns about the geological risks that China’s Zangbo hydropower project poses to the environment and people. After Beijing announced on 25 December 2024 that it would go ahead with the construction of this huge project, India has reaffirmed that it would protect its interests and also sent a reminder to Beijing reiterating its rights to the waters of the river, while also seeking transparency over Beijing’s plans.

“We will continue to monitor and take necessary measures to protect our interests,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s ministry for external affairs. This project will have a massive impact on the flow of the Brahmaputra, as well as the texture of the river basin. The proposed project could also result in severe drought and floods, affecting millions of Indians living downstream.

It may be recalled that, on 25 December 2024, China had officially approved the construction of the world’s largest hydro-power dam – a 60-gigawatt super dam located on the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo river (upper Brahmaputra) in Tibet. The project is expected to cost $137 billion, with the gigantic dam likely to produce 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually on completion, which is more than three times the amount generated by Three Gorges Dam in central China.

Meanwhile, China has come with the statement that this project would not hurt India. “China adheres to a responsible attitude towards cross-border river development and pursues a policy of balancing utilisation and protection,” affirmed Wang Lei, Chinese Embassy’s Charge d’Affairs.

During the recent meeting of the special representatives on the China-India boundary issues, both sides agreed to continue enhancing cross border communication, including co-operation on cross-border rivers. “China will continue to maintain communication with India through existing channels and step up co-operation on disaster prevention and relief,” Wang Lei added. “China stands ready to work with the Indian side to enhance mutual trust, strengthen co-operation, properly handle differences and promote a healthy and stable development of China-India relations”.

Environmental disaster

Meanwhile, environmentalists have given an entirely different take on this. “In addition to the impacts of displacing local Tibetan communities from landscapes they have protected for generations, there are other dangers of development upriver,” informs Turquoise Roof Bulletin, a research group. “Building dams at high altitude means building in shifting, thawing permafrost. Permafrost, the semi-permanently frozen layers of soil that underpin two-thirds of the plateau and provide essential carbon and water storage, is degrading rapidly in Tibet”.

It also says that China’s heavy infrastructure construction upriver on the plateau, closer to the previously redlined ecological zone and the melting glaciers of Tibet’s Amnye Machen range, risks releasing more methane into the atmosphere, as permafrost thaws and degrades further.

Environmentalists claim that they have documented with eyewitness evidence how entire villages are being displaced and ancient monasteries submerged to make way for the construction of dams by the same state-owned corporations that are building more coal-fired power stations in China, the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. With Brahmaputra flooding often during monsoons, this dam could result in disaster, if the prophecy of the environmentalists comes true.