December 4 is Mountain Day 2011

As the world has warmed, high mountain regions – together with Earth’s poles – have been the quickest to be affected. Because of this, the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has organized a Mountain Day today (December 4, 2011). They say it’s a convening of mountain experts, policy makers, and climate change negotiators. The meeting is, therefore, being held alongside UN climate talks, COP 17. COP 17 is going on November 28 to December 9, 2011 in Durban, South Africa.

The ICIMOD, meanwhile, is based in Kathmandu, Nepal. At COP 17, they want to call attention to the fragile mountain ecosystems. These ecosystems impact the livelihoods of mountain people in their region. This morning, ICIMOD released three reports. They say the reports “provide a new baseline and location-specific information for understanding climate change in one of the most vulnerable ecosystems in the world.”

ICIMOD says globalization and climate change are having an increasing influence on the stability of the region. The world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, stands in this region. Its high-mountain climate prompts some to refer to it as Earth’s “third pole.” These mountains may be found in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, and Pakistan.

The organizers of Mountain Day 2011 issued a press release this morning on the subject of climate change. They said:

Findings from the most comprehensive assessment to date on climate change, snow and glacier melt in Asia’s mountainous Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region—site of Mount Everest and many of the world’s tallest peaks—highlight the region’s extreme vulnerability to climate change, as rising temperatures disturb the balance of snow, ice and water, threatening millions of mountain people and 1.3 billion people living downstream in Asia’s major river basins.

Check out ICIMOD’s website for some of their most pertinent information about Mountain Day 2011.