Published: 15:13, October 31, 2023 | Updated: 16:59, October 31, 2023
Nepal's mountains have lost one-third of their ice, UN chief says
By Reuters

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres visits the Syangboche in the Everest region of Solukhumbu district on October 30, 2023. (PHOTO / AFP)

KATHMANDU - Nepal's snow-capped mountains have lost close to one-third of their ice in over 30 years due to global warming, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday after a visit to the area near Mount Qomolangma (Everest), the world's highest peak.

Climate scientists say the earth's temperature has increased by an average of 0.74 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years, but warming across South Asia's Himalayas has been greater than the global averages.

Glaciers in Nepal melted 65 percent faster in the last decade than in the previous one, the UN chief said in a video message after visiting the Solukhumbu region

Glaciers in Nepal melted 65 percent faster in the last decade than in the previous one, the UN chief said in a video message after visiting the Solukhumbu region.

"I am here today to cry out from the rooftop of the world: stop the madness," he said, calling for an end to "fossil fuel age" with the warning that melting glaciers would mean swollen lakes and rivers sweeping away entire communities, and seas rising at record rates.

ALSO READ: Study: A third of Himalayan glaciers can no longer be saved

Glaciers in the Hindu-Kush Himalaya could lose up to 75 percent of their volume by century's end due to global warming, scientists said in a report published in June this year, causing dangerous flooding and water shortages for 240 million people who live in the mountainous region.

Climbers returning from Everest have said the mountain was dryer and greyer now.

This photograph taken on April 26, 2018, shows the Khumbu glacier, one of the longest glaciers in the world, and the Everest base camp at the Everest region, some 140kms northeast of Nepal's capital Kathmandu. (PHOTO / AFP)

"Record temperatures mean record glacier melt. Nepal has lost close to one-third of its ice in just over 30 years," Guterres, who is on a four-day visit to the country, said.

READ MORE: Report: Hindu Kush Himalayan glaciers disappearing faster

He also urged countries to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius to avert "the worst of climate chaos".