ICIMOD partners with UN Climate Change to strengthen region’s climate action and ambition

Signing of a groundbreaking Memorandum of Understanding between ICIMOD and the UN Climate Change at Bonn, Germany, on the sidelines of the 62nd sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB 62) meet. Photo credit: IISD/ENB - Kiara Worth

• Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, and Pema Gyamtsho, Director General, International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development sign partnership on the margins of the UN June Climate Meetings, Tuesday (24 June)
• Partnership aims to strengthen region’s climate change leadership in critically at-risk mountain region, build capacity to implement the key goals of the Paris Agreement, and support policymaking and investment through research, evidence, science, and data
• Gyamtsho hails agreement as ‘a validation of this region’s global significance, exposure and finance needs. It’s also a recognition of the pivotal role our member states must continue to play in the energy transition and within the global climate discourse on adaptation, loss and damage and finance’

Bonn, Germany, 24 June 2025 – The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, also known as UN Climate Change) today (24 June) signed a three-year memorandum of understanding to strengthen climate action in the countries of the Hindu Kush Himalayas.

Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, and Pema Gyamtsho, Director General, ICIMOD, signed the agreement on the side-lines of this year’s UN June Climate Meetings, formally called the 62nd session of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB 62). The meetings help advance key climate issues and prepare decisions for adoption at the COP30 UN Climate Change Conference in Belém, Brazil, this November.

The agreement comes as sustained and concerted efforts by a coalition of stakeholders to foreground mountain issues within the global climate discourse gather momentum.

Highlights include the June 2023’s Expert Dialogue on Mountains and Climate Change with Harry Vreuls, Chair of the UN Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA) at last year’s June Climate Meetings; as well as high-level convenings by ICIMOD members states, including the Prime Minister of Bhutan’s ministerial meeting at COP29, and the Government of Nepal’s flagship Sagarmatha Sambaad dialogue – on ‘Mountains, Climate Change, and the Future of Humanity’ – held in Kathmandu in May this year.

The three-year partnership between ICIMOD and UN Climate Change, which leverages and deepens ICIMOD’s long-standing status as an observer of the UN Climate Change process, focuses on:

1. Strengthening climate change leadership and engagement within and beyond the Hindu Kush Himalayan region;
2. Building regional and national capacity for implementation of the UN Climate Change Paris Agreement;
3. Developing research and evidence to support climate policy-making and climate-smart investment.

A central plank of the partnership will be in supporting governments implement the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF), whereby countries transparently track progress towards meeting emission reduction commitments and adapting to climate change, as well as identifying needs for support.

The ETF is a core part of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding international treaty on climate change. The Paris Agreement aims to keep temperature rise to well below 1.5ºC above pre-industrial levels and to reduce the risk of increasingly severe climate change impacts, such as more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves, and rainfall.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region is frontline to the effects of climate change, with visible and felt impacts on its ecosystems and communities. The melting cryosphere has caused significant impacts, leading to water insecurity, food shortages, increased disasters such as glacial lake outburst flows (GLOFs), biodiversity loss, and rising poverty, affecting both mountain communities and those downstream.

Pema Gyamtsho, Director General, ICIMOD, stated: “This workstream with the UNFCCC is a really significant opportunity for ICIMOD to create a platform to support our regional member countries and stakeholders to monitor and verify progress towards our shared global climate goals. Crucially too, the Enhanced Transparency Framework is a key way for our member states to not just report on progress, but also to identify needs, assess gaps, and request the appropriate support from global partners to help our region meet the challenges temperature rise is unleashing on our mountains on unprecedented pace and scale.”

Simon Stiell, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary, said: “Transparency is a cornerstone of effective implementation of the Paris Agreement, which helps ensure all countries can share in the vast benefits of climate action: stronger economies with more jobs, less pollution and better health, secure and affordable energy, accessible to all. This collaboration with ICIMOD marks a significant step forward in equipping countries across the Hindu Kush Himalaya region with the tools, capacity, and partnerships they need to monitor, report, and strengthen their climate actions and ambition. Together, we can turn data into real progress on the ground, and build resilience in one of the world’s most vulnerable yet richly diverse regions.”

As an observer of the UN Climate Change process, ICIMOD supports its Regional Member Countries (RMCs) through science-based contributions to advance key agenda items, including adaptation, finance, and loss and damage. ICIMOD welcomes this collaboration with UN Climate Change, which enables meaningful contributions toward the overall goals of the Paris Agreement – to limit global warming to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, pursuing efforts to restrict it to 1.5°C and increasing capacity of countries to mitigate, adapt and address impacts of changing climate.

Since its establishment, ICIMOD has been supporting Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan in their climate actions – informing and influencing national policy formulation through scientific evidence, convening and facilitating regional climate action, and providing technical assistance at global climate processes.

Over the years, the three Rio Conventions have repeatedly highlighted the importance of mountains, including within the context of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems, ecosystem-based approaches, and resilience measures.