May I Present to You a Carbon Neutral Country: The Kingdom of Bhutan
- Henk De Vlaeminck
- 13 giu 2016
- Tempo di lettura: 3 min
Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay accompanies us on a voyage to his country. The Kingdom of Bhutan is a small country with a population of 700.000 people, hidden in the Himalayas between China and India. He explains us his country’s mission to put happiness before economic growth and to set a world standard for environmental preservation. Bhutan pledged to remain carbon neutral for all time.
“This country isn’t just carbon neutral – it’s carbon negative | Tshering Tobgay”, TEDTalks, Youtube, 01/04/2016.
The monarchy of Bhutan always had a clear vision of how to develop the country. Balancing economic growth carefully with social development, environmental sustainability and cultural preservation. All within the framework of good governance. They called this holistic approach to development Gross National Happiness (GNH). In 1970, the 4th King of Bhutan declared “Gross National Happiness is more important than gross national product”. Since then, all development in Bhutan is driven by GNH.
That is easier said than done, especially for one of the smallest economies in the world. Yet in Bhutan, education, health care, even medicines are free. Thanks to a careful use of limited resources and staying faithful to the core mission of GNH they manage to do so. “It is simply development with values”, Tshering says, economic growth is important, but it must not undermine our values, culture and environment.
72% of the country is covered with pristine forest, one of the few remaining global biodiversity hotspots in the world. That is why Bhutan is a carbon-neutral country, the only one in the world. To be precise, Bhutan in carbon-negative. The entire country generates 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide, but the forests sequester more than 3 times that amount.
In the constitution is written: “The Government shall ensure that, in order to conserve the country’s natural resources and to prevent degradation of the ecosystem, a minimum of sixty percent of Bhutan’s total land shall be maintained under forest cover for all time.”
That is not all, Bhutan also exports green electricity produced with their fast flowing rivers. This clean energy offsets another 6 million tons of carbon dioxide. By 2020 they plan to be able to export energy to offset almost 17 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Climate change is a reality, causing devastating flash floods and landslides in Bhutan due to melting glaciers. That is why Bhutan promised to stay carbon neutral. They did that promise for the first time in 2009 during COP15 in Copenhagen. Last December in Paris at COP21 they renewed their promise, and this time they were heard!
All those efforts are expensive and over the next few years, their small economy will not have the resources to cover all the expenses that are required to protect the environment. Running the numbers it looks as if it would need 15 years to fully finance all of the conservation efforts. But neither Bhutan, nor the world can afford to spend 15 years going backwords.
This is why the king of Bhutan started “Bhutan for life”, Essentially a funding mechanism that gives Bhutan time to take over the full financial load. The way is to raise a transition fund from individual donors, corporations and institutions. However, the deal is closed only after predetermined conditions are met and all funds committed. It is a bit like a Kickstarter project, but with a 15 year time horizon. During this 15 years, Bhutan will raise its own funding gradually. After that, the government guarantees full funding forever. The WWF is Bhutan’s main partner in this project and they expect to close the deal by the end of 2016.
To end his journey with us, Bhutan’s Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay shares one more dream. That is to replicate the “Bhutan for Life” for other countries, or why not extend it to an “Earth for Life” project. After all, we are in it together!
Have a nice view, and tell us in a comment if your next trip will be to Bhutan?
What does Bhutan understand about happiness that the rest of the world does not? Award-winning journalist and author Madeline Drexler recently traveled to this Himalayan nation to discover how the audacious policy known as Gross National Happiness plays out in a fast-changing society where Buddhism is deeply rooted--but where the temptations and collateral damage of materialism are rising.
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