ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Minister for Climate Change Dr. Musadik Malik warned the international community on Sunday that accelerated glacier melt in the Hindukush-Karakorum-Himalaya (HKH) Mountain range is placing millions at risk, state media reported.
Pakistani officials and experts have warned that unusually high temperatures in the country’s northern areas are resulting in the rapid melting of glaciers. Islamabad has highlighted that this prolonged melting phenomenon could lead to water shortages and threaten lives in the longer run.
Pakistan is home to more than 7,253 known glaciers and contains more glacial ice than any other country on earth outside the polar regions. Almost all these glaciers lie in the northern region of Gilgit-Baltistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Pakistan has urged the international community to act swiftly to protect the rapidly deteriorating cryosphere, warning that accelerated glacier melt in the Hindu Kush–Karakoram–Himalaya (HKH) region is placing millions at increasing risk,” state-run Associated Press of Pakistan (APP) reported.
Dr. Malik was speaking at a virtual high-level dialogue during the ongoing COP30 summit in Belem, Brazil. The minister said the world is witnessing “unprecedented” changes across glacier systems, permafrost zones and snow-covered regions.
