KATHMANDU, JULY 7
Experts have warned that the water level will go up by 8 to 12 per cent by 2050 if the current situation of global warming continues.
At a programme organised by Nepal Federation of Environmental Journalists in collaboration with Clean Energy Nepal on Monday, climate change expert Manjeet Dhakal said water quantity would see a whopping rise by 2050 if the temperature continued to go up.
"Had there been no measure put in place to check the existing global warming, the temperature of the earth would have increased additionally by 1.3 to 1.8 degrees Celsius by 2050," he warned.
"There has been an increment of one degree Celsius owing to the effect of global warming caused by industrialisation," Dhakal shared .
The 2015 Paris Agreement had pledged to limit the global temperature at 1.5 degree Celsius. He also claimed that over 80 per cent of recent incidents of disasters in Nepal had occurred due to climate change.
Dhakal also highlighted the initiatives showcased by the Nepal government so far in the course of mitigating the risks resulting from climate change.
According to ICIMOD, Nepal has 3,252 Himalayan glaciers and 2,323 glacial lakes. Most of the glaciers have witnessed change in their size and shape while 20 snow lakes are at risk. Various studies have revealed that snow and glacier-fed rivers of Nepal were rapidly melting.
Environment journalist Rajesh Ghimire cautioned the increment of life-threatening water-borne diseases like diarrhoea and mosquito-borne diseases due to the rising global temperature.
A version of this article appears in the print on July 8 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
