The Climbing for Climate Justice Everest expedition – organized by the Save the Himalayas Campaign and Khangri Media, in collaboration with Friends of the Earth Nepal / Pro Public successfully climbed Mount Everest to demand climate justice from the top of the world.
“This expedition aims to draw attention to the disastrous impacts that climate change is having on our precious ecosystems as well as local communities,” said Prakash Mani Sharma, executive director of Friends of the Earth Nepal / Pro Public.
Himalayan glaciers are melting rapidly and the threat of glacial lake outburst floods has significantly increased with more than 40 lakes at risk. These floods have catastrophic impacts on the homes and communities of the thousands of people living downstream from these lakes.
The Himalayas nurture hugely important rivers such as the Ganges, Indus, Mekong, Yangtze, Irrawaddy, and many others. These rivers feed the lives and livelihoods of over 1.5 billion people including in India, Nepal, Tibet, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Afghanistan.
“Climate change disproportionately affects the most vulnerable and marginalised people in Nepal and around the world; the people who are least responsible for the climate crisis,” said Sarah-Jayne Clifton, Friends of the Earth International climate justice and energy co-coordinator.
“The leaders of the developed countries that caused the crisis are not even trying to deliver climate justice. To avoid climate catastrophe we must transform the unjust and unsustainable economic system at the heart of the problem,” she added.
Shiva Bahadur Sapkot climbed the world’s highest peak backwards to warn developed countries’ leaders that development in countries like Nepal is going backward because developed nations are not taking the urgent steps needed to address the climate crisis.
The expedition also featured Sudarshan Gautam, a Nepal-born Canadian resident, has just become the first person with no arms or prosthetic limbs to climb Mt Everest. He said “Mount Everest has lost most of its glacier and now largely looks like a big black rock.”
