An international conference on understanding climate change and enabling climate action in the Hindu Kush Himalaya has kicked off in the Capital.

The primary objective of the conference is to foster cooperation among participating countries by raising awareness about climate change and to enable climate action in the Hindu Kush Himalaaya by encouraging climate investments and through mutual learning and sharing.

The conference is jointly organised by the Ministry of Population and Environment and the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) with the participation of Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The conference had started on Tuesday.

The participating environmental scientists will hold discussions on various pertinent climate change issues, including awareness raising, promoting knowledge sharing, enlisting the participation of the local science and research community including indigenous mountain communities, fostering a better understanding among the news media and sharing key findings of climate change studies and enabling action climate action among policy makers, development practitioners, youth, civil society and business sector representatives.

Around 200 persons from the private sector, civil society, journalists and youth from 15 countries are attending the conference.

In his inaugural address to the conference, Secretary at the Ministry of Population and Environment Bishwanath Oli said that climate change has adversely affected the people's livelihood and on the physical infrastructures thereby raising the incidence of poverty.

He added that the government has been implementing various policies and programme interventions as the local adaptation plan of action, the national adaptation plan of action to combat climate change impact.

ICIMOD Director General David Molden stated that emphasis has been laid on promotion of cooperation and partnership among the countries within the ambit of the Hindu Kush Himalaya region for the protection of basic services like water and energy as the climate change has affected mostly the mountain people. RSS