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The Hindu Kush Himalaya region, which stretches 3,500 kilometers and includes Earth's highest mountain range, is warming by 0.3 C per decade -- faster than the global average, according to the U.N.'s science body for climate change. (Illustration by Yoshiko Kawano)

COP28 spotlights key climate battle: Saving Himalayan ice

From Afghanistan to China, vanishing glaciers risk floods and drought for billions

RHYANNON BARTLETT-IMADEGAWA, Nikkei staff writer

December 19, 2023 06:00 JST

DUBAI -- Filmmaker and environmental activist Jamyang Jamtsho Wangchuk brought a bit of his beloved Himalayas to the COP28 climate summit in Dubai last week. Around 250 milliliters of it, to be precise.

In a plastic Coca-Cola bottle he had found discarded in the mountains, Wangchuk collected water from three glacial lakes: Jichu Drake and Thorthormi in his home country of Bhutan and the highest glacial lake in the world, on Mount Everest's South Col. These form part of a landscape better known for its beautiful peaks than as a key Asian battleground in the fight against global warming.