‘World Has Much to Learn from Nepal’s Climate Leadership’, Says Secretary-General, in Message for Everest Dialogue

Following is the text of UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ video message for the “Sagarmatha Sambaad” — Everest Dialogue, in Kathmandu today:

Your Excellency Prime Minister K. P. Sharma Oli, dear friends,

I am so pleased to send a message of solidarity and support to this first-ever Sagarmatha Sambaad.

I couldn’t agree more with the spirit of this gathering — that your majestic mountains, including Sagarmatha, truly inspire us to think beyond borders and reflect through dialogue and engagement.

I have felt that spirit on my visits to Nepal — including, most recently, when I had the privilege of seeing the glacial valley basins at Mount Everest and the Annapurnas.  I saw first hand how the rooftops of the world are caving in.

Record temperatures have meant record glacier melt. Nepal today is on thin ice — losing close to one third of its ice in just over 30 years.  And your glaciers have melted 65 per cent faster in the last decade than in the previous one.

Nepal and so many other vulnerable front-line countries did not cause this tragedy.  But, you are living with the impacts.

And we know when glaciers shrink, so do river flows.  In the future, major Himalayan rivers like the Indus, the Ganges and Brahmaputra could have massively reduced flows.

Combined with saltwater intrusion, that would decimate deltas.  We would see low-lying countries and communities erased forever; millions of people on the move with fierce competition for water and land; and floods, droughts and landslides accelerating worldwide.

That is why last year, from Nepal, I sent a global message to the world:  stop the madness.  And that is why you are gathered together focused on sambaad — dialogue.

The world has much to learn from Nepal’s climate leadership. From your local adaptation plan of action; to pioneering the United Nations Early Warning Systems for All initiative; to extraordinary efforts on reforestation; and pushing to reach your climate goals by 2045.

The world must act without delay to keep 1.5°C in reach — with the biggest emitters in the lead.  By seizing the opportunities of renewable energy and the benefits they bring to communities and economies.  By making good on climate finance commitments, including the $1.3 trillion climate finance goal, agreed at COP29 [twenty-ninth Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change].  By honouring the promise of developed countries to double adaptation finance to at least $40 billion this year.  And by delivering serious support to the loss and damage fund to help the most vulnerable.

Achieving these goals demands bold collaboration, across nations and sectors.  The United Nations is your ally in this essential task.  Thank you.