February 5: A new study report warns that current rate of emission would lead to five degrees in warming and a loss of two-thirds of the region’s glaciers by 2100 if global effort to minimize the effects of climate change fail.

According to Rastriya Samachar Samiti (RSS), the comprehensive study of the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has found that the snow-covered mountains across eight countries in Asia will become bare rocks within a century.

“This is the climate crisis you haven’t heard of,” RSS quoted Philippus Wester of ICIMOD, who led the comprehensive new study, as saying.

“Global warming is on track to transform the frigid, glacier-covered mountain peaks of the HKH cutting across eight countries to bare rocks in a little less than a century,” he said.

Westar further said that its impacts on people in the region, already one of the world’s most fragile and hazard-prone mountain regions, will range from worsened air pollution to an increase in extreme weather events. But it’s the projected reductions in pre-monsoon river flows and changes in the monsoon that will hit hardest, throwing urban water systems and food and energy production off kilter, RSS further said.

The report also calls for great recognition of mountain areas and the HKH region in global climate efforts. The ICIMOD had initiated to prepare the report and was released amid a function in the capital on Monday, February 4.