Regionalism and Climate Change in South Asia: Challenges, Cooperation, and the Future of Environmental Governance
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2025.v10.n8.031Keywords:
Regionalism, Climate, Diplomacy, South Asia, EnvironmentAbstract
This essay looks at the complicated connection between regionalism and climate change in South Asia, a place with lots of people, weak ecosystems, and a lot of different political systems. It looks at how cooperation (or lack of cooperation) in the area has affected how people have dealt with environmental damage, extreme weather, and managing resources across borders. Even though South Asian countries all care about the environment, they have often had to work on separate national plans because of problems with trust in politics, differences in wealth, and old wars. Regional groups like the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) could be used as places for people to work together to control climate change. This essay takes a critical look at how well these systems work and points out new trends in working together across borders, sharing technology, and climate policy. It says that for South Asia to have sustainable environmental government, regionalism needs to be rekindled and based on ecological interdependence, trust, and multilateral environmental agreements. The study comes to the conclusion that South Asia needs both strong national economies and a shared regional vision based on shared responsibility and coordinated action in order to deal with the climate problem.
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