POTPOURRI

Kathmandu, Nepal (CNN) -- Nepal's cabinet met at the base of Everest on Friday to highlight the impact of climate change on the Himalayas and adopted a 10-point Everest Declaration.

"The Himalayas are important not only for the people of Nepal but for 1.3 billion people who depend on waters from the mountains for their livelihoods," said Nepal's Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal at the cabinet meeting broadcast live by state-owned Nepal Television.

Wearing oxygen masks and warm jackets, the cabinet met for about half an hour at Kala Patthar at an altitude of 5,242 meters surrounded by the world's highest mountains and glaciers.

The ministers flew in to Lukla, in the Everest region where the nearest airstrip is, a day earlier to acclimatize to the rarefied atmosphere of Kala Patthar. The cabinet met out in the open where tables had been set up. The ministers spoke through microphones because it was difficult to hear even over a short distance with the wind blowing.

Of the 27 cabinet ministers, 24 were present at the meeting and they were wearing blue sashes that said "Save the Himalayas."

The sun was shining bright during the meeting in the morning but in the afternoon fog descended and the wind grew fiercer.

Before they were airlifted by helicopters to Kala Patthar the ministers' health was checked to ensure they could withstand the high altitude and not suffer from acute mountain sickness because of the low amount of oxygen in the atmosphere at that altitude.

"This is a very important and historic meeting," Prime Minister Nepal said. The meeting comes ahead of the United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen next week.

The Himalayas have an important role in the world's environmental balance, he added.

The melting of the glaciers in the mountains due to global warming would bring about a scarcity of water in the river systems in South Asia, affecting more than a billion people in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and China, according to various experts.

"But there has not been enough study to say exactly how much of the river water comes from the melting of the snow and ice in the mountains," said Ajay Dixit, a climate change expert from the Institute of Social and Environment Transition, a Kathmandu-based think tank. "Estimates vary between four to 10 percent."

Dixit, however, added that in specific areas in the mountains where people depend on the melting of specific glaciers for irrigation, the change in the snow system will affect livelihoods.

There has been an annual increase of temperature by 0.06 degrees Celsius over the past decade, according to a study conducted earlier this year by Dixit together with Oxford University. It it estimated that the temperature in Nepal could rise by as much as two Celsius by 2030.

Rainfall patterns have also been erratic and this affects the livelihoods of almost two thirds of Nepal's population of 28 million who depend on rain-fed agriculture.

"Various global circulation models show that precipitation could go down by 14 percent or increase by as much as 40 percent by 2030," Dixit told CNN.

Although the contribution of Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, to carbon emissions is negligible, the poor and the marginalized bear the brunt of climate change, Prime Minister Nepal said at a press conference after the cabinet meeting.

The 10-point Everest Declaration the cabinet adopted includes increasing the protected area of Nepal's land from 20 percent to 25 percent, developing communities' capacity to cope with climate change and working together with other countries to mitigate the impact of global warming.

The declaration also supported developed countries' plans to contribute 1.5 percent of GDP to a climate fund and bring down greenhouse gases to pre-industrialization levels.

"The earth is our common abode," said Prime Minister Nepal. "To save the earth the biggest sacrifice is needed from nations producing large amounts of carbon."

COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT KICKSTARTS

Delegations from 192 countries are descending on Copenhagen for two weeks of talks aimed at paving the way for a new global treaty on climate change . 
The global average temperature has already risen by about 0.7C since pre-industrial times . The Greenhouse gases release is also on the high . Largely , the world is moving nowhere towards undoing the damage . 
Though a few attempts have been made to set things right but the outcome is ubiquitously unconcealed . Kyoto Protocol , for instance , extends to only a small set of countries and is set to receive a premature death in 2012 . This makes the Copenhagen Summit even the more important.
The reason this treaty is quintessential is that though some countries have already made the commitments but richer developing countries would be asked to restrain emission as a strategy embarking this treaty . Moreover developing countries will be discussing more economically viable ways of development . 
 BASIC ( Brazil, South Africa, India and China ) have put forward their expected set of protocols in the agreement . Other group of discordant countries have also held meets prior to the summit to even out their differences before the real deal gets underway .
UN is incessantly iterating that the head of the respective countries have never been as resolved as this time around about securing the deal . However so : How the resolve is going to be formulated is still to be seen . 

FIRST SOLAR POWERED PLANE TAKES-OFF.....

'SOLAR IMPULSE'  ,the first solar powered plane , takes off . The advancement in the technology field is warmly welcomed by environmentalists . It is being considered as a 'quick silver' initiative from the plane makers.

 The plane took-off in Duebendorf airport near Zurich . It is actually a prototype of 'Solar Impulse' , a pioneering bid to fly around the world on solar power  . The single-seater plane was powered by battery . It made a controlled 400 metre flight about one metre above the runway . Despite its wingspan of 63.40 metres it only weighs 1600 kilo-grammes . 

PROBING INTO THE PROBITY OF OUR G(REEN) QUOTIENT

Almost everyone seems to have a view about well-nigh everything . However what goes unquestioned is the self conscience . How often do we find ourselves indulged in an absurd or counterproductive discussion ? However still we are unwilling to address the thought necessisating issues even once . We say some politician is corrupt and some sportsman doper and some actor junkie but when do we put ourselves under scanner ?. Perhaps we are too interested  in minding other's business than ours . Not to mention our convenience's child policy adaption ; our direction only to be determined by the flow . We choose to find a convenient fall guy for a debacle's short term resolve rather than to fix it by allocating a remedial measure ; and at display is our short-sightedness in tackling problems for larger good . It's a DOG-EAT-DOG WORLD . Copy-n-Paste seems to be the perfect mantra as we drag ourselves onto this drama stage called 'world'. Acquired Taste philosophy is another attribute to our feather that is worth commending satirically , so as to say .

All said and done the one and only thing that gives us the edge is : "WE ARE STILL ALIVE" ; and there's absolutely no shying away from the fact . However the facts are only to be registered among the historical evidence , that once existed , later down the timeline. In order to make sure that we do not entirely become a part of this timeline and that we live a little longer , it's time to act now .

It's time when we stop complaining and start taking the accountability at least for our own actions. Surely ZERO ACCOUNTABILITY is not the right attitude in this precariously destined-to-be-doomed world , where each one of us is as associated as a DNA strand to the genes .

It will still be a 'lesson learnt in time' if resurrection is taken as an option , especially when it is the only option or rather the only-way-out .  Our hopes are pinned on our own choice ; this is something that luck does not make available too often . We have to make the choice of our SURVIVAL or EXTINCTION .
However it's not as simple as it seems . It would require a severe introspection , to go deep within and analyze the roots , from each one of us . For it we'll have to probe into the probity of our G(reen) Quotient and come up with a GREENNOVATING plan of action .