Tuesday, December 01, 2009
While the Maldives chose to go down (underwater) to draw attention to the dangers of global warming, Nepal has selected to go up—way up. This week, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal will lead his senior ministers up Mount Everest to conduct the highest-known cabinet meeting ever, all to draw attention to his nation’s plight before the convening of the 15th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen, scheduled to begin December 11.
The plan is to hold the cabinet meeting on December 4 at the Everest base camp, which is situated at a height of 17,192 feet (5,250 meters) above sea level.
Home to the Himalayas (also known as the “third ice cap”), Nepal is in danger of losing many of its glaciers and year-round snow cover, which feeds some of the largest rivers in Asia, such as the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Brahmaputra. The rapidly melting snow is also forming new lakes in Nepal that are threatening to flood nearby villages. Mountaineers have also complained that melting ice had made climbing the fabled peak more treacherous.
All participants in the meeting will have to pass a doctor’s exam, but those invited include 27 ministers and five members of the cabinet secretariat. They will be accompanied by 26 Nepalis who have climbed to the summit of Mount Everest.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Mount Everest to Host Nepal Cabinet Meeting (BBC News)
Nepal to Hold Cabinet Meeting on Mount Everest (by Dean Nelson, Telegraph)
Maldives Cabinet Meeting to be Held Underwater (by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov)
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