GENEVA, March 13: Global warming is causing Himalayan glaciers to rapidly retreat, threatening to cause water shortages for hundreds of millions of people who rely on glacier-dependent rivers in China, India and Nepal, the WWF has warned.

The warning by the global conservation group came as the WWF released a report which, it said, exposed the accelerating rate of retreat of Himalayan glaciers as global warming increased.

The report indicates glaciers in the region — which represent the greatest concentration of ice on the planet after the Arctic poles — are receding at an average rate of 10 to 15 metres per year.

“The rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will first increase the volume of water in rivers, causing widespread flooding,” said Jennifer Morgan, Director of the World Wide Fund for Nature’s Global Climate Change Programme in a statement.

“But in a few decades this situation will change and the water level in rivers will decline, meaning massive economic and environmental problems for people in western China, Nepal and northern India,” she said.

Himalayan glaciers feed into seven of Asia’s greatest rivers — the Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Salween, Mekong, Yangtze and Yellow rivers — ensuring a year-round water supply to hundreds of millions of people in the subcontinent and China.

The report was published in the run-up to two meetings in London on climate change organized by Britain as head of the G8. In a letter sent to participating ministers, WWF stressed the need to recognize climate change as an issue that seriously threatens security and development.

“Ministers should realize now that the world faces an economic and development catastrophe if the rate of global warming isn’t reduced,” Morgan said.

A study commissioned by WWF shows that dangerous levels of climate change could be reached in just over 20 years and that if nothing is done, the earth will have warmed by two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Farenheit) above pre-industrial levels by some time between 2026 and 2060.

“All countries must understand that crossing the two degree Celsius ceiling is truly dangerous,” said Morgan.—AFP