Roving Periscope: Himalayas melting alarmingly, warns UN chief
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Warning the world that the Himalayas are melting at an alarming rate, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday insisted on urgent action to protect the world from climate challenges ahead.
Nearly 240 million people depend on the glaciers and 10 major rivers, including the Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra which all originate in the world’s highest mountain range. Another billion people living downstream of these rivers across eight countries, including India, are also dependent on the glacier-fed rivers.
Warning of a potential catastrophe in the Himalayas where the glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, Guterres said the ongoing annual climate talks in Dubai must respond to the needs of the developing nations, especially the vulnerable mountain countries that need urgent help.
Addressing a meeting with mountain countries at this year’s Conference of Parties (COP28), the UN chief emphasized that nearly a third of Nepal’s ice had vanished in just over 30 years, and it was directly linked to greenhouse gas pollution that heats the planet, the media reported.
Guterres, who visited Nepal in October, including the Everest region, called for developed countries to clarify the delivery of USD 100 billion and produce a plan to double adaptation finance to USD 40 billion a year by 2025.
But those sums are dwarfed by the scale of what’s needed, he said and advocated for reform in International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to better cater to the needs of developing countries like Nepal.
He said unless there is a change in course, a catastrophe can be unleashed.
The glaciers could disappear altogether. That means massively reduced flows for major Himalayan rivers such as the Indus, Ganga, and the Brahmaputra. Deltas would be decimated by saltwater.
The UN chief highlighted the alarming pace at which the glaciers were disappearing, causing devastating impacts on local communities. The mountains are crying out for help and COP28 must respond.
Guterres also attended the high-level roundtable with Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, and other heads of state and delegations, after
the recognition given to the mountains in the COP28 President’s Opening Plenary, which mandated the issue be taken up under the Nairobi work program.
On Friday, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development’s (ICIMOD) Deputy Director General Izabella Koziell stated the urgent imperative to prioritize the Hindu Kush Himalayas for loss and damage compensation. She called for rapid scaling up of funding to understand events to help the vast populations exposed to these events.
A 2017 study by ICIMOD established that even when the world manages to maintain the global temperature rise average at 1.5 degrees Celsius, there will be a rise of 2 degrees Celsius or more in the Himalayan region by the end of the century.
Nearly 100,000 delegates from 198 countries are participating in the global conference which commenced on Thursday and will run through December 12.
