It helps to have friends in high places. And it doesn’t get much higher than Everest.The head of the United Nations took his climate change crusade to holy ground this week, urging the world to “stop the madness” of climate change.Standing at the base of Mount Everest and the birthplace of Lord Buddha, Secretary General António Guterres warned “the rooftops of the world are caving in” as he warned of melting glaciers that threaten food and fresh water supplies around the globe..At Lumbini, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and birthplace of Buddhist founder Siddhartha Gautama — also known simply as Buddah — Guterres invoked his Holiness to help solve the world’s deepening problems, including the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as the “persistent challenges” of poverty, inequality and the “worsening impacts of the climate crisis.”“Humanity has a choice. The path to peace is ours to take. It is not always an easy one, but guided by Lord Buddha’s timeless example, I believe it is a vision we can make real through action,” he said.Lumbini, which translates as the 'lovely' in Nepali, has been a place of pilgrimage for the world’s 535 million Buddhists for more than 2,500 years.Guterres emphasized the Buddhist message of compassion, non-violence, and interdependence as an inspiration for all and source of unity.The UN chief was invited to address the Nepalese parliament on Tuesday, but not before making a side trip to the Solukhumbu district which is famous for being the staging area for mountaineers seeking to scale the world’s highest peak..There, he noted Nepal has lost almost a third of its ice volume in 30 years, with glaciers melting 65% faster in the last decade than in the previous one, outpacing areas such as Greenland and Antarctica.The Himalayas high glaciers feed large river systems throughout the Indian subcontinent, sustaining crops, livestock and local economies in a region that is home to more than 1.8 billion people.Guterres warned in the future, major rivers such as the Indus, the Ganges and Brahmaputra, could have massively reduced flows and in combination with saltwater, decimate delta regions and put “entire communities at risk of extinction.”“That spells catastrophe: Low-lying countries and communities erased forever. We must act now to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, to avert the worst of climate chaos. The world can’t wait,” he concluded.
