Nepal cabinet meets at Everest to send climate message

(December 7, 2009) Padded in layers of protective clothing and wearing oxygen masks, Nepal's cabinet met close to the base camp of Mount Everest on Friday to send a message on the impact of global warming on the Himalayas, three days before the summit on climate change began in Copenhagen. Nepal's prime minister and more than 20 ministers flew in by helicopter to hold their cabinet meeting 5,242 metres above sea level with Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain, towering in the backdrop. The base camp is the point where climbers start their ascent to the Everest summit. At the meeting, the cabinet passed what it called the "Everest Declaration" to be presented at the Copenhagen summit. "The Everest Declaration calls upon the world to minimise the negative effect of climate change on Mount Everest and other mountains in the Himalayan range," Prime Minister Madhav Kumar told the local community and reporters. Home to eight of the world's 14 tallest peaks, including Mount Everest, Nepal is vulnerable to climate change despite being responsible for only 0.025 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, among the world's lowest, officials say. Thousands of glaciers in the Himalayas that are the source of water for 10 major Asian rivers could go dry in the next five decades because of global warming, experts say. The unusual meeting follows in the footsteps of the Maldives, which held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting in October to highlight how rising sea levels threaten the Indian Ocean archipelago's existence. “It’s not a Nepali issue or the concern of countries in the Himalayan region alone. The impact of global change on the Himalayas would impact 1.3 billion people living in South Asia,” Prime Minister Kumar said.