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SOS - a mayday from earth's tallest mountains

Date and time

28 Jun, 24 • 3:15pm
NPT +5:45
additional time zones

Venue

Online

Contact

Annie Dare
Register Here

As part of London Climate Action Week’s #BeatTheHeat focus, we’re drawing attention to the snow and ice crisis in the highest peaks in the world: the Third Pole in Asia. Save Our Snow is a new advocacy collective from the vast highland crescent of the Hindu Kush Himalaya, the tallest mountain range on Earth. 

Incubated by regional knowledge centre ICIMOD, SOS brings together mountain communities, mountain scientists, and mountain champions from culture and the outdoor industry to testify to the fragility and beauty of the Hindu Kush Himalaya: a place that holds the third largest mass of ice after the two poles and which provides water to some of the largest population centres on Earth. 

As temperatures rise and weather systems go haywire, the campaign is calling for leaders to cut the cord on fossil fuels. Join founder members of SOS—renowned athletes, scientists, creatives, and policymakers from Asia and beyond—to hear the latest science, diplomacy, visual storytelling, discussion, and to forge community.  
 
The event will feature advocates and supporters from ICIMOD’s SaveOurSnow campaign, including: 

Speaker(s)

Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa
Tenzing Chogyal Sherpa
Cryosphere Analyst, Nepal
Tenzing is a cryosphere analyst in Nepal. Born in Namche, in the foothills of Everest, ethnic Sherpa and the grandson of the last surviving member of the 1953 British Mount Everest expedition team, he founded ICIMOD's #SaveOurSnow campaign last year. Extensive field monitoring experience includes the National Geographic and Rolex Everest Expedition, and the Khumbu Glacier Everdrill project. He is a sought-after spokesperson on climate issues, and last year, age 31, represented ICIMOD at President Emmanuel Macron’s One Planet Polar Summit.

Tashi Lhazom
Tashi Lhazom
Filmmaker | Youth advocate, Nepal
Tashi is a climate justice activist, human rights defender, and filmmaker from Limi Valley, Humla district in the far-west of Nepal. She uses storytelling to disseminate climate information and humanize nature. Her debut film, “No Monastery, No Village” (2024) addresses repercussions of climate change on culture heritage. As a grassroots green advocate, she focuses on decentralising and localising climate knowledge so that people on the margins can understand it too.

Nyal J. Mueenuddin
Nyal J. Mueenuddin
Filmmaker, Pakistan - USA
Nyal is a filmmaker and photographer, and director of the documentary, “When the Floods Come”, on the 2022 Pakistan floods. A wildlife filmmaking graduate of Bristol’s University of West England, Nyal has recently moved to Islamabad to launch his own production studio, Jungli Films. He has worked as a camera operator and editor with WWF-Pakistan, and as a researcher and drone operator for the BBC's landmark series, Planet Earth 3, and is a National Geographic grant recipient. With an educational background in environmental science and South Asian studies, Nyal has for several years focussed on telling stories of Pakistan's natural diversity and environmental challenges.  He has worked as a camera operator and editor with WWF-Pakistan, WWF International's 'Big Cats Initiative', and as a researcher and drone operator for the BBC's landmark series, Planet Earth 3. He has also received a National Geographic grant to cover the stories of Afghan refugees arriving to Pakistan after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

Babar Ali
Babar Ali
Doctor | Climber | Climate Advocate, Bangladesh
Babar is a doctor-turned-mountaineer, climate advocate, photographer and writer born in Chattogram. Since first visiting the Himalayas in 2014 he has scaled multiple 6,000-metre mountains, and was the first Bangladeshi to climb Amadablam, in 2022; and this spring climbed Everest and Lhotse. He is the founder of mountaineering club Chattogram, Vertical Dreamers. In 2019 he hiked through all 64 districts of Bangladesh in 64 days raising awareness of single use plastics, and regularly coordinates environmental clean-ups. Babar Ali is also the founder of Chattogram, Vertical Dreamers, a renowned mountaineering club. Back in 2019, he hiked through all 64 districts of Bangladesh in 64 days. During his walk, he created awareness of the single use of plastic among the masses. He is also actively engaged in arranging cleaning expeditions in the remote hilly areas of Chattogram Hill Tracts on a regular basis. In 2023, he cycled 4000 kilometers from the northernmost point of India (Kashmir) to the southernmost point of India (Kanyakumari). He is also a photographer and a writer.

James Kirkham
James Kirkham
Ambition on Melting Ice (AMI) Chief Science Advisor and Coordinator, International Cryosphere Climate Initiative
James is a glaciologist and climate scientist with a PhD and MPhil in Antarctic climate science from the University of Cambridge and the British Antarctic survey. Field work includes expeditions to Thwaites Glacier, one of the most rapidly changing and unstable glaciers in the world, and he previously worked as a snow scientist at ICIMOD. James works at the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative where he serves as the Chief Science Advisor and coordinates the Ambition on Melting Ice High-level Group on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources.

Carole Fuchs
Carole Fuchs
Policy Director, FCDO Tokyo | Ultra endurance athlete
Climate diplomat | Ultra endurance athlete Japan, France, UK Carole is a French professional mountain athlete based in Japan who has climbed 8000 peaks in the Himalayas including Everest. Passionate about all things running and endurance, she has set course records in multiple key ultra-trail races in Asia. Each expedition to the world’s highest glaciers has opened her eyes to the consequences of cryosphere loss for local populations and the planet. After working in the renewable energy sector for six years she is now a climate diplomat for the UK government in Japan.

Moderator(s)

Annie Dare

Communications, UK / Nepal
Annie joined ICIMOD in April 2023, leading the launch of SaveOurSnow in May 2023 and the publication of the centre’s Water, Ice, Society and Ecosystems in the Hindu Kush Himalaya report in June 2023. She has represented ICIMOD at the highest levels, including at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference in Dubai in November 2023. She was previously based in the UK, working as Communications Consultant to Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC), where worked on the Afghanistan Crisis Appeal (2021), the Pakistan Floods Appeal (2022), and was an organizer of Right to Roam’s Dartmoor campaign, The Stars are for Everyone.
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