Nepal holds highest Cabinet meeting at Mt. Everest

SYANGBOCHE, Nepal - Nepal's top politicians, oxygen tanks strapped on Friday and held a cabinet meeting in the middle of Mount Everest's icy, thin air, to highlight the threat global warming poses to glaciers, ahead of next week's international Climate change talk.
The government billed the stunt as the world's largest cabinet meeting. The ministers, wearing oxygen masks, yellow and purple sashes reading, "Save the Himalayas," sit at folding tables set on a plateau in the snowcapped peak of Mount Everest behind them.
They have asked for pictures, signed a commitment to tougher environmental regulations and the expansion of the country's protected areas - and then quickly flew away.
"The Everest statement was a message to the world to reduce the negative impacts of climate change on Mount Everest and other Himalayan mountains," Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal said later.
Scientists said the Himalayan glaciers are melting at an alarming rate, creating lakes, with walls that can burst and flood towns below. Melting ice and snow, the trails for mountain climbers make less stable and more difficult to follow.
At the ministers to the mountain safely requires extensive planning.
The prime minister, two deputy premiers and 20 cabinet ministers were treated by doctors before boarding helicopters Kalapathar, a flat area at an altitude of 17,192 feet (5250 m) along Everest base camp, the starting point for climbers looking for scale the peak.
The Himalayan Rescue Association's Bikram Neupane said that the politicians - bundled in thick jackets, windproof gear and wool hats - was already sufficient oxygen levels in their blood and they were in no immediate danger.
The Cabinet has only 20 minutes along the hill on a bright, sunny day in an attempt to prevent any of the pastors, unused to the heights of the Himalayas, at a altitude sickness.
Several of the ministers is overweight, other was in their 70s and many of them from low-lying plains in the south. Four ministers declined to attend either as a result of health care, or because they were traveling in foreign countries.
While rescue helicopters were on standby, none of the officials are sick.
The ministers who had stayed overnight Thursday in the town of Lukla, about 9180 feet (2800 meters) high, to acclimatize to the higher altitude. They then traveled to Syangboche - 12,800 feet (3900 meters) high - where the helicopter took the world's highest mountain.
The event was the prelude to the international climate change conference next week in Copenhagen, Denmark, and was intended "to the world's attention on the impact global warming is having on developing countries like Nepal," Environment Minister Thakur Sharma said.
The talks are aimed at with regard to measures to control the rise in global temperature that scientists warn could lead to a devastating result in rising sea levels, shrinking access to drinking water, the movement of agriculture and the spread of disease.
Nepal's negotiating team in Copenhagen, will be for the rich countries push to 1.5 percent of their earnings committed to help the poorer nations, environmental protection, he said.
Local residents in the Himalayas officially welcomed their guests with a cream-colored silk salt used for auspicious occasions.
"The hills and mountains used to be covered with snow, even during the summer. But now snow only on the higher mountains can be seen," said Ngyendon, 66, who like many in the region uses only one name.
"We are pleased that the government is taking initiatives before it is too late. Ordinarily authorities tend to act after accidents. We are now hopeful that something can be done," said Mingma, a 47-year-old inn keeper at Syangboche.
There are no climbers during the winter season and most climbing is done during the spring. Kalapathar is considered the best place to see Everest.
In October, the Maldives in the possession of an underwater Cabinet meeting to highlight the threat rising sea levels attributed to global warming linked to the Indian Ocean island.