Balancing An Intricate Act

BHUTAN'S PRIME MINISTER DISCUSSES HOW THE CARBON-NEGATIVE KINGDOM DEALS WITH CLIMATE CHANGE AND A GROWING RIVALRY BETWEEN NEIGHBORS INDIA AND CHINA

- DANISH MANZOOR BHAT

I ONLY WISH GREENHOUSE GASES NEEDED visas and passports," Bhutan's Prime Minister Lotay Tshering lamented to Newsweek in an interview in the highest country on earth.

Mountainous and heavily forested Bhutan has been called the first carbon negative country, meaning that it takes in more of the carbon dioxide that fuels global warming than its limited industry pumps out. But its location in the Himalayas exposes it all the more to the impact of climate change resulting from the emissions of other countries.

While low-lying nations are often seen as early victims of climate change as a result of rising seas, in Bhutan it is the accelerating pace with which glaciers are melting that is a problem. The lakes they are feeding threaten to burst and cause flash flooding that can be catastrophic for Bhutan's people and its agriculture. Steep slopes in the country, which has an average altitude of nearly 11,000 feet, make it prone to landslides during heavy rainfall-with the instability potentially exacerbated by earthquakes.

"We are challenged with a lot of natural disasters that come in and surprise us," Tshering said.

The natural elements are far from the only challenges in Bhutan, which faces one of the most intricate geopolitical balancing acts anywhere given its location sandwiched between the world's most populous countries and increasing rivals-India to the south and China to the north.

Friendly with India, with which it does well over 80 percent of its trade, Bhutan is locked in border negotiations with China, which claims a swathe of the country of about 775,000 people-a little more than the population of Seattle. Although Bhutan has no formal ties with the United States, the U.S. State Department says the two countries have warm, informal relations.