KATHMANDU: After cancelling the Mountain Alliance meeting slated for early October due to its failure to confirm the participation of several ministers from mountainous countries across the world, the government has stepped up efforts to hold the same meeting in March 2011.
Towards this end, experts from 16 mountainous countries, at a meeting held in the Capital on Friday, decided to urge the mountainous countries to support the ‘Nepal Initiative’.
“The meeting concluded with a clarion call for greater global support and partnership to protect mountain ecosystems and their services from the growing impact of climate and associated global changes,” said the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which has been facilitating the government effort on the mountainous countries’ meeting.
The Cabinet had, on June 23, decided to host a ministerial level meeting in Nepal. Subsequently, PM Madhav Kumar Nepal had made an announcement to this effect at the Copenhagen summit on climate change in December 2009. After the Cabinet decision, the Ministry of Environment had invited ministers from 50 countries for the meeting in July, but the government failed to receive confirmation from most of the countries, which led to postponement of the meeting. “The government officials who confirmed for the meeting were as per our expectations, but there were very few confirmations from the ministers, so we decided to host the meeting in March with greater preparation,” said Batu Krishna Uprety, Chief, Climate Change Management Division, MoE.
According to ICIMOD ,Friday’s meet also decided to request the mountain countries to nominate a focal institution and person in each country so that the planned ministerial conference can be more effective and productive. |
