Climate worries to send Nepal cabinet to Everest base

By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU (Reuters) - Nepal's cabinet plans to meet at the base camp of Mount Everest this month to highlight the impact of global warming on the Himalayas ahead of next month's U.N. negotiations on climate change, a minister said on Monday.

The base camp is located about 5,300 meters (17,400 feet) up the 8,850 meter (29,035 feet) mountain and is the point from where climbers to the Everest summit begin their ascent.

"The cabinet meeting is meant to draw the attention to the adverse impact of climate change to the Himalayas including Sagarmatha," Forest Minister Deepak Bohara told Reuters, using the Nepali name of the mountain.

The Maldives held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting last month, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the Indian Ocean archipelago's existence.

Bohara said Nepal would also send some of its renowned Everest climbers to Copenhagen next month to highlight the problems of glacier melting, erratic rains and unprecedented forest fires.

Negotiations for a new global accord to fight global warming are scheduled to conclude at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in the Danish capital in December.

Bohara also appealed to Everest climbers from around the world to gather in their climbing gear in Copenhagen on International Mountain Day on December 11 to draw the attention of the delegates to the risks of climate change in the Himalayas.

Experts say mountainous Nepal, home to eight of the world's 14 tallest peaks, including Mount Everest, is vulnerable to climate change despite being responsible for only 0.025 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, among the world's lowest.