It’s not simply that the snow and glaciers on the Hindu Kush Himalaya mountains are melting: they supply water to 3 billion people in Asia. What will they drink when the mountains, also known as the Third Pole, are dry?
And what will happen to the 240 million people who live in the HKH, which stretch from Afghanistan to Myanmar and tower over eight countries in total, including Nepal?
Those are some of the issues being raised by ICIMOD in a campaign called #HKH2Glasgow, which targets the upcoming UN climate conference, known as COP26. The latest episode of the Nepal Now podcast features a conversation with Nanki Kaur from ICIMOD.
Kaur emphasizes that the governments of the eight countries aren’t simply calling for more money to deal with global warming; they want support for their current efforts, which include linking climate adaptation to responding to the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.
