António Guterres issued the warning in a video message to the inaugural Sagarmatha Sambaad, or “Everest Dialogue,” convened by the Authorities of Nepal in Kathmandu.
“Document temperatures have meant file glacier soften,” he mentioned.
“Nepal at present is on skinny ice – dropping near one-third of its ice in simply over thirty years. And your glaciers have melted 65 per cent quicker within the final decade than within the one earlier than.”
Named after Mount Everest (Sagarmatha in Nepali), the worldwide platform convened ministers, parliamentarians, local weather specialists, and civil society to concentrate on local weather change, mountain ecosystems, and sustainability.
Two billion futures at stake
Glaciers within the area have served for hundreds of years as very important freshwater reservoirs. Their accelerated soften now threatens not solely native communities however huge populations downstream who depend on Himalayan-fed rivers.
Diminished water circulate in river techniques such because the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Indus threatens not solely water but additionally meals manufacturing for practically two billion individuals throughout South Asia.
Mixed with saltwater intrusion, this might set off collapsing deltas and mass displacement, the UN chief warned.
“We might see low-lying international locations and communities erased without end,” he mentioned.
Youngsters elevate their voices
Forward of the summit, Nepal’s kids and youth stepped into the highlight with their very own name to motion.
In a declaration submitted to the dialogue, over 100 kids and younger individuals demanded pressing and inclusive local weather motion that acknowledges them as rights-holders and local weather actors – not simply passive victims.
Amongst their key calls for: making certain little one participation in local weather selections, supporting youth-led programmes, and selling their improvements and local weather motion.
“The local weather disaster is a baby rights disaster – disproportionately impacting their well being, diet, schooling and well-being,” mentioned Alice Akunga, head of the UN Youngsters’s Fund (UNICEF) in Nepal, which supported the deliberations.
“Listening to the voices of the ‘way forward for humanity’ is essential to designing and implementing significant and lasting options to deal with the antagonistic results of local weather change on kids and youth.”
UN Information/Vibhu Mishra
Glaciers within the excessive Himalayas, like these in Nepal’s Langtang area (pictured), feed main South Asian river techniques sustaining tens of hundreds of thousands of lives and livelihoods downstream
Cease the insanity
In his message, Mr. Guterres reiterated his name on the world to “cease the insanity” of fossil fuel-driven world warming, a warning he made throughout his earlier go to to the Everest area in 2023.
On the time, he stood amid glacial basins within the Himalayas, warning that the “rooftops of the world” had been quickly vanishing.
“And that’s the reason you’re gathered collectively targeted on Sambaad – dialogue,” the UN chief mentioned on Friday, applauding Nepal’s local weather management, together with reforestation programmes, early warning techniques and its purpose to realize net-zero emissions by 2045.
Act now
The world should act directly to restrict world temperature rise to 1.5°C, he continued – the goal set by the Paris Settlement on local weather change – with the most important emitters main the way in which.
This consists of investing in renewable power, fulfilling the $1.3 trillion local weather finance purpose agreed at COP29, doubling adaptation finance to at the least $40 billion this yr as pledged by developed international locations, and offering strong, sustained assist to the Loss and Harm Fund.
“Reaching these objectives calls for daring collaboration,” Mr. Guterres concluded. “The United Nations is your ally on this important activity.”
