Back to news
1 Dec 2023 | Press releases

Guterres to attend COP28 meeting with heads of states of mountain countries

2 mins Read

70% Complete

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will attend a high-level roundtable with heads of states of mountain countries on December 2.

Guterres will join Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Prime Minister of Nepal, and heads of state and delegations including Xavier Espot Zamora, the Prime Minister of Andorra, Zheenbek Kulubaev, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kyrgyz Republic, and Uros Vajgl, the State Secretary of Slovenia.

The roundtable follows Guterres’ recent visit to the Himalayas, where the cascading impacts of climate change threaten a quarter of the world’s population, as well as the recognition given to mountains in the COP28 President’s Opening Plenary, which mandated the issue be taken up under the Nairobi work programme.

The roundtable also follows the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development’s (ICIMOD) submission to Friday evening’s high level event on the Warsaw International Mechanism on Loss and Damage convened by UNFCCC Adaptation Division. Izabella Koziell, ICIMOD Deputy Director General, will state the urgent imperative to prioritize the Hindu Kush Himalaya for Loss and Damage compensation. Koziell will argue for a rapid scaling up of funding to understand rapid and slow onset events, to help the vast population sizes exposed to these events (240 million in the mountains and a billion downstream) adapt, and to compensate communities for losses and damages.

At the Government of Nepal event on Saturday, Koziell will present the most up-to-date research on the impacts of cryosphere change on the Himalaya region, linking to ICIMOD’s report which found glaciers in the region could lose up to 80% of their current volume by the end of the century.

“Mountain regions are highly sensitive to environmental change,” says Koziell. “The Himalayan glaciers in the 2010s melted 65 per cent faster than the previous decade, which is generating cascading climate risks. Disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity across the region, and communities, particularly the most vulnerable, are struggling to cope with the onslaught of droughts, floods, and extreme weather. These hazards are also wiping out investments in infrastructure – including hydropower and roads.

“The pace of climate change across the Himalayan mountain range is generating enormous economic losses. Those most impacted but least to blame must be compensated, and leaders gathered in COP28 must make emergency emissions reductions now to avert even more catastrophic impacts in this, one of the world’s most populated zones.”

Delegates will also hear from Pam Pearson, Director of the International Climate Cryosphere Initiative (ICCI), on its 2023 State of the Cryosphere report. The report shows that all the Earth’s frozen parts will experience irreversible damage at just 2°C of global warming. “Remaining within 1.5°C is the only way to prevent an accelerating chain of catastrophic events, economic loss and growing political instability”, says Pearson.

“2023 has been a year of climate disasters and ice loss, which has underlined the urgent need for global leaders to recognise that two degrees is too high for Earth’s cryosphere,” concluded Pam Pearson, Director of ICCI. “Today’s landmark report shows that we need to take 2°C off the table.”


About the event:

About the State of the Cryosphere 2023 Report

Location: Meeting Room 12, DEC South, Blue Zone


For media inquiries, please contact:

Annie Dare, Head of Communications
Raz Tuladhar, Media Officer
Anshu Pandey, Media Associate

Email: media@icimod.org

Stay current

Stay up to date on what’s happening around the HKH with our most recent publications and find out how you can help by subscribing to our mailing list.

Sign Up
4 Nov 2020 Press releases
A key global asset under threat

Kathmandu, Nepal (29 October, 2020): The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) is threatened by climate and other changes, and urgent coordinated ...

10 Oct 2014 Press releases
Transboundary cooperation key to biodiversity conservation

Participants at the meeting of the parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity emphasize the need for sharing ...

5 Jul 2024 Press releases
Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences and ICIMOD partner to advance mountain agriculture

Kathmandu, Nepal – 4 July 2024 China’s Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences (YAAS), based in Kunming, today signed a long-term partnership ...

20 May 2022 Press releases
Effects of melting glaciers on food production in South Asia

Millions of farmers in South Asia depend on meltwater from the Himalayas. Melting glaciers, rainwater and groundwater allow farmers downstream ...

2 Sep 2016 Press releases
Managing climate and social risks key to hydropower development

The Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region has nearly 500 GW hydropower potential, but only a fraction of it has been ...

19 Sep 2024 Press releases
South Asian countries trial digital tool to streamline and strengthen biodiversity reporting

Kathmandu, 18 September - National biodiversity experts and officials from Bhutan, China, Nepal, Pakistan, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Cambodia have ...

24 Sep 2019 KDKH
Country chapter for the Koshi disaster risk reduction knowledge hub to be developed

A recent UNESCAP disaster risk-focused report has identified transboundary river basins in South Asia as disaster hotspots. One such area ...

27 Sep 2014 Press releases
Young professionals learn new ideas on enhancing adaptation in the mountains

Forty-seven young professionals convened at the headquarters of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) in Kathmandu, Nepal ...