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Under the garb of the development of "green energy", China is removing Tibetans from their ancestral lands as Beijing's eyes are set on the vast renewable energy potential of the Third Pole of the world, reported Tibet Rights Collective (TRC).
Tibet will be witnessing more construction of dams in the coming year with a China-led forum deliberating on the need to develop more clean energy bases in the region recently. According to Chinese media reports, the 7th Yangguang (Sunshine) Forum was held both online and on-site on Dec 21 in Lhasa. With the main venue in Lhasa and a parallel venue in Chengdu, the forum reportedly held "in-depth discussions on coordinated development of clean energy", with the theme "Jointly Innovating Clean Energy Development and Seeking New Opportunities in Realizing Dual Carbon Goals," reported TRC. The report also quoted the white paper on "Ecological Progress on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau", to state that the explorable hydropower resource in Tibet is 178 million kilowatts in technical terms, ranking first in the country. Geothermal resources in Tibet also rank first in the country, reported TRC. These developments have to be looked at with caution since occupied Tibet's environment is exploited by CCP to meet its ends. Tibetan plateau is often known as the "Third Pole", and holds the third-largest store of water ice in the world. Its glaciers feed several of the world's largest rivers, rivers that over 1.5 billion people throughout south and southeast Asia depend on every day for their water supply. Yet Tibet is warming three times faster than the rest of the earth, losing an estimated eight billion tonnes of ice every year as glaciers disappear, reported TRC. The purportedly "green" policy that China is pursuing in Tibet has been of building a number of dams on the plateau, to reduce the country's dependence on coal. However, the cost of the CCP's megaprojects is being paid by the local Tibetans, in the form of disruption of their habitats as well as dislocation of people, reported TRC. Lianghekou hydropower station, for instance, which is located in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture was estimated to help reduce raw coal consumption by 13.3 million tons and carbon dioxide emission by 21.3 million tons per year, the report said. However, beneath the veil of "green energy", about 6,000 people across four counties were relocated and once it is fully completed by 2023, the Lianghekou dam will reportedly drown ancestral homes, Buddhist monasteries and sacred mountains. China is also pursuing a policy of turning vast areas of Tibet into national parks, which is used as a pretext to remove even more Tibetans from their ancestral lands, reported TRC. (ANI)
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