Nepalis note climate change

Villagers walk around in Kyangin Gompa valley at the foothill of Mt. Langtang Lirung (7252m), north of Kathmandu, Feb. 24, 2009. The local people say this year is the first time as far as they remember that it did not snow in the valley when they celebrated their New Year in February. (Gopal Chitrakar/Reuters)

KATHMANDU, Nepal — In the Langtang region of the Himalayan Nepal, near the Tibetan border, residents see the impacts of climate change all around them: in the less abundant grass, the meager snowfall and the massive gray glaciers steadily retreating up the craggy mountainside.

In June, we left Kathmandu by jeep, then spent three days hiking to find the nearest glacier. Our guide, Damondon Pyakurel, or DP, told us that the wall of ice above us had receded up to 20 meters since he first saw it 17 years ago. We spent the next day at about 14,000 feet talking to locals about the changes they’d seen.

A yak shepherd, who had recently moved his herd up the mountain, told us that there is less grass at lower altitudes now, and as a result fewer yaks on the mountain.

In a Buddhist monastery we met Jhandu Lama, who said that in the summer there is no longer snow on this side of the mountains. A man supervising the construction of a community center nearby told us that the glaciers hadn’t merely shrunk since his childhood, but had also changed color from blue and green hues to a mucky white.

Around here, no one knows why the climate is changing. But they suspect it might have something to do with the environment — especially the many foreign trekkers who leave their trash on the mountain.

At Kathmandu-based ICIMOD, an international NGO for mountain research and sustainability, director Madav Karki offers a different explanation. He points to CO2 emissions and greenhouse gases as the root of the problem.

Nepal is one of the world’s poorest countries, with very few emissions of its own. Still it’s extraordinarily vulnerable to the effects of a changing climate: Temperatures are rising more rapidly in the Himalayas than on global average. Over the last decade the average temperature in Nepal has risen 0.6 degrees over the last decade, compared with an increase in average temperatures globally of 0.7 degrees over the last hundred years. Scientists worry that the impact of what is happening in Nepal will be felt all over Asia.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/asia/091208/nepal-glaciers-climate-change