Policymakers, experts from world’s tallest cryosphere zone call for action to save Earth’s snow and ice

Warning about the catastrophic global impact of this year's record-breaking losses of snow and ice, environmental experts and policymakers here called for an urgent acceleration of climate action to save the earth's melting snow and ice.

The summit organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and Ministry of Forest and Environment, Nepal, was attended by ministers, diplomats, senior policymakers and experts from the eight-nation Hindu Kush Himalayan region and beyond, according to the press release on Thursday.

The Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region encompasses eight countries which include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.

"The total and irreversible loss of mountain glaciers around the world is about to be locked in unless immediate action is taken," observed James Kirkham, Chief Scientific Adviser to the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative.

"The science is unequivocal," remarked Pema Gyamtsho, Director General of ICIMOD, according to a press release issued by ICIMOD.

"We have to act now to prevent the Earth from spiralling towards a state beyond which it can no longer sustain life. With two billion people relying on waters held in these mountains for their food and water security, all of us have a huge humanitarian weight on our shoulders at this moment,'' it quoted Pema as saying.

"The consequences of this and the catastrophic losses of ice in the Arctic and the Antarctic should alarm the world," Kirkham noted.

Global "ice emergency" is locking in sea level rise that will put huge areas of Dhaka, Karachi, Shanghai, and Mumbai underwater by 2050.

"It will destabilise the climate system that has kept Earth habitable for millennia and result in large parts of Dhaka, Mumbai, Karachi and Shanghai being underwater if current increases in emissions continue," Kirkham said, adding that Bangladesh alone will see 18 million refugees as a result of sea level rise by 2050.

ICIMOD's Climate and Cryosphere Crisis forum took place as senior cryosphere scientists from the Ambition on Melting Ice High-Level Group on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources (AMI) urged world leaders at the United Nations Climate Ambition Summit to make cuts in line with the 1.5 ºC Paris Agreement.

The upper threshold of 2 ºC of warming would unleash "catastrophic" changes, AMI argues, and called for it to be taken "off the table." Scientists emphasised the urgent need to study the Hindu Kush Himalaya's permafrost, whose thawing threatens the rising incidence of major hazards, including landslides, but also the release of vast amounts of carbon and methane as carbon sink turns into carbon source.

Inaugurating the event, Nepal's Minister of Forests and Environment, Birendra Prasad Mahato said, "The Government of Nepal has prioritised cooperation with its neighbours on issues related to climate change, environmental degradation, disaster risk reduction, biodiversity conservation and socio-economic improvements."

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)