Nepal’s cabinet will meet near the base of Mount Everest next week to highlight the impact of climate change on the Himalayas, ahead of the U.N. summit to discuss global warming in Copenhagen, officials said on Saturday.
About 26 ministers and other cabinet officials will fly to Gorakshep on a helicopter to attend the cabinet meet scheduled to take place on December 4 at an altitude 5,165 metre near the Everest base camp, said Bishnu Rijal, the Prime Minister’s press advisor.
He said the cabinet meeting at the gateway to the Everest will pass a resolution on climate change.
A medical team will accompany the government officials along with oxygen cylinders to facilitate the cabinet meeting, he said.
The unique meeting comes after the Maldives Cabinet met underwater in October to symbolically flag the threat of global warming ahead of a crucial U.N. Summit.
The government of the Maldives had held the underwater cabinet meeting in a bid to draw global attention towards the rising sea levels that threaten the existence of the island country.
Earlier, Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal underlined the adverse impact of climate change on his country. He said Nepal is the most affected by the melting snows and our melting glaciers are inviting a bigger catastrophe in near future though it contributes minimum to the global climate change.
