Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalaya in Copenhagen

Background

The enthralling beauty of the majestic Himalayan Mountains has inspired awe and religious devotion in people around the world for millennia. They have been the objects of adoration, and centers of religious homage. With most of the eight-thousanders rising here – including the majestic Everest, the crown of all- the Himalayas, the youngest of the mountain systems, dwarf all other mountain ranges. The lofty Himalayan mountains continue to challenge the spirit and contribute to the human experience.

The Himalayan mountains, sprawling across 2,700 km in Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, and Bhutan, contain the greatest area of glaciers and permafrost outside the polar area, encompassing about 15,000 glaciers. Feeding the ten largest rivers of Asia like the Ganges, Indus, Huang Ho, the Greater Himalayas are the water towers of Asia. Together, the basins of these ten rivers provide livelihood to 1.3 billion people. The Himalayas possesses an abundance of ecological riches, from subtropical to arctic climates, and support vast numbers of flora and fauna.

Apart from the majestic beauty of its landscape, the Himalayan region plays an important role in global atmospheric circulation, biodiversity, and water resources, and provides ecological services. The Himalayas regulate the climatic regime in the Indian subcontinent and the Tibetan plateau by preventing the frigid, dry arctic wind in the north and forming the barrier for the warm monsoon winds in the south. The Himalayas’ effects in climatic regime are felt far and wide.

A large number of tenacious people residing in the Himalayan mountains and the river valley have over centuries carved out diverse cultures. The Himalayas have profoundly shaped the cultures of South Asia. The lofty peaks and the mighty rivers flowing from the Himalayas have inspired the rise of early civilization and support mosaic of cultural diversity today.

The lofty Himalayas and the region, which have all along been playing an important role in climatic regime regulation, are now themselves facing the perils of climate change. Several recent scientific reports have shown that the temperature is rising in upper reaches of Himalayas at an alarming rate of 0, annually - several times more than the global average. This rate of higher than average warming in the Himalaya puts the already fragile mountain ecosystem and its marginalized community at a greater risk.

The impact of global warming in the Himalayas is not localized; it spreads far and wide, up to the sea and coastal region, affecting a vast number of ecosystems and millions of people. Although contribution of the people living in the Himalayan region to global warming is negligible, they are the early victims of its effect, and have to bear the brunt of it.

Summiteers and the Himalayas

Ever since the western mountaineers were allowed in Nepal in 1949, for the first time, Nepalese Himalayas have become the center of attraction for a large number of renowned mountaineers. Summiting lofty eight thousanders gathered momentum after the climbing of the Annapurna in 1950, for the first time by the French expedition team.

Summiteers and the Himalayas have maintained a close reciprocal relationship. The Himalayas have helped summiteers achieve their aspirations and the summiteers have brought home the Himalayas to the imagination of a vast number of people. Today, when the Himalayan mountains are facing the perils of global warming, it behooves on summiteers, the great lovers of Himalayas, to come forward collectively to help raise awareness about this great threat to humanity. Moreover, summiteers enjoy that unique and enviable position from where any concerns expressed for the Himalayas carry an essence of genuineness. Collective expression of such concerns on the eve of International Mountain Day coinciding with the conference of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen could be an excellent opportunity to draw the attention of the global community. It provides an opportunity for the summiteers to express their love for the Himalayan mountains.

Against this backdrop, a program ‘Summiteers Summit to Save the Himalayas’ (S3H) will be organized in Copenhagen to mark the International Mountain Day on 11 December 2009 as an accompanying event of the UNFCCC conference. Summiteers of the Himalayan peaks from Himalaya and around the world, celebrities of international repute, and larger global audience with a concern for global climate change will gather and march together to discuss and highlight the challenges faced by the Himalaya in the context of the global warming. Conference of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen could be an excellent opportunity to draw the attention of the global community. It provides an opportunity for the summiteers to express their love for the Himalayan mountains.

Objective

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 well-being of hundreds of millions of people in the world.

Further specific objectives are to draw the attention of the global community to:

• Recognize the vital role of the Himalayan mountain region in regulating global climatic regime.
• Highlight the ecosystem services the Himalayan mountains provide to the millions of people and the larger region.
• Recognize that Himalayan mountains are as vulnerable, if not more, as any other most vulnerable regions of the world.
• Recognize 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.

Program

The Summiteers’ Summit to Save the Himalayas in Copenhagen will bring in to the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change the summiteers from Nepal and around the world who have earned name and fame summiting the lofty peaks of the Himalaya to demonstrate their concerns for the climate change in the Himalayas. They will join hands and march in the streets of Copenhagen to communicate to the global community the perils of climate change in the Himalayas. The program will be organized on the eve of the International Mountain Day on December 11, 2009. It is expected that such a demonstration in the midst of the Climate Change Conference would help to draw the attention of the global audience concerned with climate change which have gathered in a single forum. This event will be organized as an independent accompanying event on the side line of the session of the UNFCCC.

In addition to the participation of the Himalayan summiteers, a large number of other celebrities of international repute will attend the programme. Cultural programs will be presented jointly by a team from the Mount Everest region and a Danish Band. Spectacular the photo exhibition and documentary show from the Himalayas will flank the Summit. The Summit will issue a declaration avowing to the environmental integrity of the Himalayan mountains and protecting them from the perils of climate change.