Hopeful Cop-15 Conference for Mountains and the Humanity

Everest

World record holder Legendary mountaineer Apa Sherpa witnessed water while in South Col route of Everest at an altitude of 8000 meters. Lakpa Dorje Sherpa memorizes quenching his thirst melting the ice even in Everest base camp some years before, but during this year’s expedition, he saw plenty of small lakes around the same spot. Dawa Steven Sherpa also says that there was no existence of Imja glacial lake until 1960, but it is now at highest risk of outburst. Peak climbers are frightful that soon the mountaineering will be changed into rock climbing because the snow line is growing up higher very fast.

Unfortunately, experiences of the used-to summiteers and the radical changes in Himalayas have shown Nepal to be in high risk of effect of climate change. The effect of climate change has already affected the Himalayas, but it could be more severe in the future too near. Although Himalayas are suffering most from the effect of climate change, these have never got the rightful attention of international community on climate change debates.

Most of us know that factors that aid to climate change and global warming are greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), level of which are raising more and more day by day.

Nepal’s role in CO2 generation is only 0025% of the total amount whereas the industrial and highly developed countries like USA and China produce 20% and 21% of CO2 respectively. Countries like Nepal are facing the side effects of poison the industrially developed countries are producing more than they themselves.

However, whoever is the faultier, the mistake has been done already and its result has started to affect the countries like ours maybe due to our geographical setting. Study has shown that the Himalayan region has got increase in temperature by 0.6% during the last decade and in the time frame of 100 years, it is estimated to raise the temperature by up to 5.5 Celsius.

Importance of Mountains
Most of us may not know that mountains cover one-fifth of the globe, and almost half of humanity depends on the mountain ecosystems directly or indirectly. The Hindu Kush Himalayan region is an essential part of the global ecosystem. This mountain region is rich in biological diversity and environmental resources and serves as a water source for the region, and the world. Nine Himalayan river systems flow along these Himalayan ranges and provide direct basis for livelihoods for over 150 million people. They support the being of over 1.3 billion people – a fifth of the world’s population. Nevertheless, this environment is now under constant threat as a result of environmental degradation and effect of climate change. These have aggravated environmental hazards such as landslides, floods, GLOFs, and droughts.

Carbon Emissions
Rich nations are in charge for most of the gases that are already heating the planet. Until 1990’s statistics, countries like USA and UK were ahead in carbon emissions but in the latest days, china has surmounted them. China refused to decrease its CO2 production in the past reasoning that it was its turn to develop.

USA, which is now world’s second CO2 producing countries even, turned to be most reluctant and refused to sign in the Kyoto Protocol. Had signed in the protocol the developed nations had to bring their production of greenhouse gases down by 5%.

But, ahead of the 15th UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen USA and China has already given their word to reduce their greenhouse gases fabrication by 40-45% until 2020. If pursued, this decision would be boon for the earth.

What is Greenhouse gas?
Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The main greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere are water vapor, CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth’s surface would be on average about 33 °C, colder than at present. Human activities since the start of the industrial era around 1750 have increased the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere causing global warming and climate change.
All gases stay in the atmosphere for a certain length of time before they are removed by their sinks which is known as atmospheric lifetime of a gas. Sink is a method by which a gas can be removed from the atmosphere. CO2 has several sinks within the atmosphere, including trees and plants. Hence the process of deforestation removes an important sink for CO2. In addition to this, if the wood is then burnt as in the ’slash and burn’ technique the CO2 is released through the burning process. Another sink for CO2 is the ocean. The ocean is both a source and a sink for CO2. The ocean acts as a big reservoir holding CO2 within its watery depths. A molecule of carbon may stay in the ocean for anything up to 200 years.
CO2 has an atmospheric lifetime of between 50 – 200 years. This means that CO2 will be present in the atmosphere for at least 50 years before it is absorbed by a sink or becomes part of another chemical reaction. Consequently, CO2 emitted into the atmosphere today could cause global warming for up to two centuries to come.
Before the Industrial Revolution, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere had barely changed over hundreds of years. This was because the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere by the CO2 sinks equaled the amount released to the atmosphere from the CO2 sources. Human activity has resulted in CO2 being released from sources faster than it can be absorbed by the sinks, so the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased.
The amount of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere has reached more than 3.64 trillion tons, which is the highest level in 800,000 years and is increasing continuously at the speed of 800 tons per second. The amount of greenhouse gases released by human activities – such as the burning of fossil fuels for energy and forest clearing – is called our “carbon footprint”.

As a whole, people are currently releasing far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than ecosystems can immediately absorb. In other words, our carbon footprint is exceeding nature’s capability to deal with it. Atmospheric carbon is already at least 383 ppm, As a result, these gases are building up in the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to rise, consequently causing climate to change.

Continued emissions of greenhouse gases could see the average global temperature rise by more than 4°C by the end of this century. The impacts of such a rise are the biggest threat to nature and humanity in the 21st century.

“Hope” to come
At the latest days with USA president Barak Obama’s commitment to decrease their carbon emissions, environmentalists are hopeful of Cop-15 Conference. The Copenhagen Conference is viewed as humanity’s future. December 11 which will be marked and celebrated as “Mountain Day” in the cop-15 Conference has brought plenty of hope also to the Himalayan nation like ours.

A commitment to fairly significant cuts in carbon emissions is inevitable. Negotiators in Copenhagen will have to agree on how to fight the climate disaster.

Nepal Effort- Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas on the Mountain Day

Twenty-two Mountaineering Sherpas and renowned Everest summiteers have already started their campaign to adjoin celebrities, global audience to their march campaign to discuss and highlight the threats of Himalayas on the eve of International Mountain Day coinciding with the conference of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen which could be an excellent opportunity to draw the attention of the global community. Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas will bring in mountaineering celebrities form Nepal and around the world to Copenhagen to jointly call the attention of the international population to focus on the threat of climate change in the Himalayas. The program will be organized as an accompanying event of the Cop-15 Convention on Climate Change to celebrate the International Mountain Day on December 11, 2009. Mountaineering icons, marching in summit gears on the streets of Copenhagen, will be joined by many mountain lovers in issuing a declaration to save the Himalayas from the impacts of climate change.

The ‘Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas’ is an awareness-raising campaign to urge leaders of national governments, international agencies, and the public at large to take urgent action to save the Himalayas from the impact of global warming and thereby protecting the livelihoods and welfare of hundreds of millions of people of the earth. Further specific objectives of the marching campaign of December 11 via “Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas are:

• To draw the attention of the global community to identify the vital role of the Himalayan mountain region in regulating global climatic system.
• Emphasize the ecosystem of Himalayan mountains on which millions of people depend on.
• Make the global community identify that Himalayan Mountains are as vulnerable as other vulnerable regions of the world due to effects of climate change.
• Identify and take action to address the multiple problems and risks due to rapid melting of glaciers and the danger it poses to the lives and livelihoods of local communities.
• Give the mountain people and Himalayan environment a chance to survive the unfolding challenges of climate change.

The UN climate change conference opened Monday in an atmosphere of hope for a deal in Copenhagen. Words conveying hopes for concrete commitments from the world’s leaders have heard higher than ever just some days before Cop-15, so we can be hopeful that although Cop-15 is not everything to conclude, it is the starting point of “Hopenhagen.”