Mountains Matter: please sign the petition

Climate change is exacerbating poverty, and is advancing in mountain areas fast. Mountain communities are already among the world’s poorest and hungriest. In acknowledgment of the impact climate change is having on mountains – where glaciers are melting, water availability is varying and the risk of disaster is rising – sign the petition to show that mountains matter.  http://chn.ge/1Lm8Fpk

This petition is coordinated by the Mountain Partnership, a UN alliance of 262 governments and civil society organizations dedicated to improving the lives of mountain peoples and protecting mountain environments around the world.

Key messages

• Mountains cover around 22% of the earth’s land surface and are home to 14% of the world’s population. They support life on earth, in the lowlands as well as the highlands.

• Climate change will exacerbate multidimensional poverty in most developing countries, including mountainous nations where some of the world’s poorest and hungriest peoples live.

• Permafrost degradation affects mountain communities by impacting the landscape, vegetation and infrastructure.

• Climate change is affecting water availability: mountains, the water towers of the world, provide 60-80% of the world’s freshwater resources for domestic, agricultural and industrial use.

• Some of the most visible signs of climate change are found in mountains, such as glacier retreat.

• Eighty percent of the ice lost in 2003-2009 was from glaciers in the Southern Andes, the Asian mountains and the Arctic.

• Climate change is making mountains more vulnerable to disasters.

• Climate change is increasingly seen as a major threat to mountain ecosystems, which host about half of the world’s biodiversity hotspots.

• Local communities possess traditional knowledge about managing and enhancing the resilience of fragile mountain ecosystems but their voices often go unheard.
  

Hashtags to trend

#WeLoveMountains

#MountainsMatter
#COP21
#ClimateAction
#Action2015