Remarks by Hon. Shisir Khanal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal High-Level Event: Advancing the Mountain Agenda: Glaciers, Cryosphere and Resilience under Overshoot, Shared Responsibility and Sustainable Financing

Remarks by Hon. Shisir Khanal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Nepal High-Level Event: Advancing the Mountain Agenda: Glaciers, Cryosphere and Resilience under Overshoot, Shared Responsibility and Sustainable Financing

12 November 2026 | Antalya, Türkiye Delivery

Time: ~5 Minutes (~580 words)

Distinguished Chair,

Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,

Namaste and a very good morning to you all.

I am pleased to be joined by my cabinet colleague Hon. Geeta Chaudhary, Minister for Agriculture, Forest and Environment here with me along with Members of parliament and high officials from Nepal.

I commend Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, and Pakistan for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us in championing this shared ecological agenda.

When mountains are in crisis, humanity is in crisis.

Our glaciers and towering peaks took millennia to form, yet many are vanishing within a single human lifetime.

Their fate will dictate the future of billions who may never lay eyes upon them. Covering approximately 27 percent of the Earth’s land surface, mountains are the freshwater towers of our planet sustaining global life through agriculture, clean energy, biodiversity, and water security.

Today, these lifelines are destabilizing at breakneck speed. Glaciers are retreating, permafrost is thawing, and mountain communities are confronting increasingly severe, cascading hazards.

What happens in the high mountains does not remain in the mountains. Its consequences surge through river basins, economies, and ecosystems, reaching far beyond national borders and straight into the rising seas.

Excellencies,

For Nepal, climate fragility is not an abstract projection—it is a harrowing reality etched into our valleys.

On the 26th of August, our mountain corridors were struck by what we have called a Himalayan Tsunami: an abrupt, high-altitude glacial and rock collapse that unleashed an immense, sediment-choked wall of water hurtling down steep river gorges. In minutes, roaring waves claimed thousands of lives, swept away bridges, and wiped-out clean hydropower plants. This catastrophe exposed the acute fragility of our cryosphere and the profound vulnerability of frontline communities whose contribution to global greenhouse emissions remains negligible.

For mountain nations, temperature overshoot cannot be dismissed as a temporary statistical deviation when its consequences are permanent. A glacier lost to warming cannot simply be restored when global temperatures eventually decline. A community shattered by disaster cannot rebuild its future on expressions of sympathy alone. Mountain resilience must therefore move to the very center of global climate action.

Excellencies,

We are not starting from zero. The Sagarmatha Sambaad in Nepal, the Bishkek Mountain Dialogue, and the Dushanbe Glaciers Conference have forged undeniable political momentum. We have made progress in diagnosing the mountain crisis; we must now match it with equal urgency in delivering solutions.

To turn sympathy into systems, and promises into binding action, Nepal proposes five decisive priorities:

1. First, ambitious mitigation: We must accelerate deep emission reductions consistent with the 1.5°C threshold, curb short-lived climate pollutants such as black carbon, and protect fragile mountain ecosystems.
2. Second, sustainable financing: Mountain countries require predictable, accessible, and grant-based climate finance for adaptation, resilient infrastructure, and sustainable livelihoods. It is unjust to force vulnerable nations to rebuild through debt alone.
3. Third, effective loss and damage arrangements: Capitalized resources must reach frontline mountain communities swiftly, directly, and equitably, enabling recovery and reconstruction before the next disaster strikes.
4. Fourth, stronger science and early warning: We must invest in high-altitude glacier monitoring, satellite observation networks, depoliticized regional data sharing, and people-centered, multi-hazard early warning systems that save lives across borders in minutes.
5. Fifth, lasting political recognition: Mountain-specific risks must receive sustained, structured institutional weight across UNFCCC processes, anchored by dedicated high-level dialogue, technical cooperation, and targeted financing.

Excellencies,

We call upon a formal "Sagarmatha, the highest peak on the planet, to the Sea" partnership, linking mountain and ocean communities through cooperation, knowledge exchange, and a stronger collective voice.

Nepal’s Sagarmatha Call for Action provides a clear roadmap for advancing this agenda, and we warmly welcome stronger international cooperation toward the proposed UN Decade for Mountain Resilience.

The world’s mountains have brought us together. What matters now is what we accomplish together. Let COP31 be remembered as the turning point when mountain resilience moved from the margins of climate negotiations to the center of collective global action.

Our melting mountains cannot wait for our negotiations to catch up with their changing reality.

Thank you. Namaste.