Kathmandu: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, who is in New York to attend the 79th United Nations General Assembly, met with UN Secretary General António Guterres at the United Nations. During the meeting, Oli and Guterres shared the opinion on the need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In a meeting held at the UN headquarters in the lead up to the Summit of the Future and 79th UN General Assembly, Secretary General Guterres expressed his commitment to lobby with the international community for compensating Nepal for the impact it has been facing due to climate change.
He also emphasized that sufficient climate finance should be provided to mountainous countries like Nepal, while working on radical reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
Secretary General Guterres emphasized the need for intensive reform in the global order with a focus on reducing and preventing carbon emissions that have been impacting developing countries, including least developed countries like Nepal, according to Nepal’s Permanent Representative to the UN, Lok Bahadur Thapa, who also attended the meeting.
The UN Secretary General also praised the performance of the Nepali security personnel in the UN peacekeeping missions. During the meeting, Prime Minister Oli expressed his gratitude to the UNSG for visiting Nepal while urging him to take the initiative to deliver climate justice to Nepal. He also requested to provide leadership positions to Nepal in the UN peacekeeping force, considering its notable contribution to maintaining international peace and security. The Prime Minister shared that Nepal will soon host the Sagarmatha Dialogue on the agenda of the Himalayan ecosystem and invited the UN Secretary General to join the dialogue. “I had a productive meeting with UN Secretary-General,” Prime Minister Oli wrote on X. “We discussed important issues, including transitional justice to climate justice. I look forward to strengthening our partnership for a better future.”
During his visit to Nepal in October, 2023, Secretary-General had appealed to the international community to show effective solidarity so that there is much more funding for countries like Nepal to fight climate change.
During his visit to Nepal in October, 2023, the Secretary-General had flown to the Everest region, including the Imja Lake. He also met with people from local communities in the Himalayas to hear directly from them about how they are being impacted by climate change. In a video message issued from the Mount Everest Region, the Secretary-General noted that Nepal had lost close to one-third of its ice in the last 30 years. He had also visited the Annapurna Base Camp, where he warned that glaciers were melting very quickly, causing floods, landslides, and dramatic impacts on communities. The Secretary-General appealed to the international community to show effective solidarity so that there is much more funding for adaptation, to build resilience, to protect the communities, adding that the loss and damage fund needs to be put to work to the benefit of affected populations.
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