A voice from the Himalayas that I wish the world would hear
(Inspired by Prime Minister Balendra Shah’s address to the UNGA)
Dear world leaders,
I am the Himalayas. I stand before you today to speak of something urgent, something the world must hear before it is too late. It is not about development, democracy, space expeditions, artificial intelligence, or world peace. It is about the survival of generations living under my shadow. And so, I wonder if you will pay attention.
I want to tell you a story you have never heard.
For thousands of years, I have watched generations grow under my shadow. I have seen families plant their crops, raise their children, age, and pass into the earth. We grew together by sharing happiness and grief. They became part of this landscape. Now, I see only their grief and the uncertainty of their lives. When the recent floods struck, everything they built through decades of hard work vanished in a fraction of a second. But the heaviest loss is not the homes, the harvests, or the lives swept away. It is the loss of human hope and courage. That is the greatest devastation of all: the grief of surviving a catastrophe they did not cause.
Do not mistake this for a local tragedy. It is a warning to the whole world. It is a sign of the accelerating impacts of the climate crisis. It is a warning that nature is reclaiming control because you failed to respect it, failed to care for it, and failed to listen.
You speak of climate change in high halls, yet fail to act, leaving the innocent people of the Himalayas at the receiving end of a climate crisis they did not create. They do not burn the coal, oil, and gas that heat the atmosphere. Their carbon footprint is almost zero, yet they pay the highest price. Our glaciers are shrinking, our rivers are becoming unpredictable, and each disaster erases years of hard work.
Who is responsible for the lives lost last month, and for the calamities that may strike these valleys again, God knows when?
When you look closer, you see that the root cause is not just global heating, but negligence, ignorance, and a lack of empathy.
I do not come asking for compensation. No monetary value can replace what these people have lost. Instead, I demand climate justice for these vulnerable nations. We ask the world’s major emitters to look at the people living in these valleys with empathy and responsibility, acknowledge their role in this crisis, and take decisive measures to curb it.
We have stood in these Himalayas for millennia, watching over the people born under our shadow for generations. We mountains have hearts that melt for their pain, because we care, we feel, and we know their stories, perhaps better than the human leaders who swear to protect them.
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