UN Secretary-General Guterres has called on the world to „stop the madness of climate change“.

Kathmandu – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged the world on Monday to „stop the madness of climate change“ during a visit to the Himalayan region, where glaciers are melting rapidly and where he has seen firsthand the devastating effects of the phenomenon.

„The roof of the world is collapsing,“ Guterres said during a visit to the Mount Everest region in the mountains of Nepal.

„Glaciers are cold reservoirs – the glaciers in the Himalayas provide fresh water for more than a billion people,“ he said. When glaciers shrink, so do rivers.

Guterres, who is on a four-day visit to Nepal, said the country’s glaciers have melted 65 percent faster in the past decade than in the previous one.

Glaciers in the Himalayas and the Hindu Kush are an important source of water for about 24 billion people in the mountains and 6.5 billion in the valleys of South and Southeast Asia.

Glaciers feed 10 of the world’s most important river systems – the Ganges, the Indus, the Yellow, the Mekong and the Irrawaddy – and directly or indirectly provide food, energy, clean air and income for billions of people.

As a result of climate change, these water systems are melting at an unprecedented rate, exposing communities to unpredictable and costly disasters, scientists say.

„I have come here today to shout from the rooftops of the world: stop this madness,“ Guterres said in the village of Syangboche, with the icy peaks of the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, looming behind him.

„The glaciers are receding, but we can’t. We must end the age of fossil fuels,“ he said.

Average global temperatures have risen by nearly 1.5 degrees Celsius since the mid-19th century, triggering a series of weather extremes including more intense heat waves, more severe droughts and storms that have become more ferocious due to rising sea levels.

The worst affected are the most vulnerable populations and the world’s poorest countries, which have done little to address the fossil fuel emissions that are contributing to rising temperatures.

We must act now to protect those on the front lines and limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees to avoid the worst climate chaos,“ Guterres said. The world cannot wait.

In the first phase of climate change impacts, melting glaciers could trigger devastating floods.

„Melting glaciers mean lakes and rivers flooding and sweeping through entire communities,“ he added.

But he warned that if changes are not made, the glaciers will soon dry up.

„In the future, the flow of major Himalayan rivers such as the Indus, Ganges and Yarlung Tsangpo could be drastically reduced,“ he said.

„This portends disaster.