India, Nov. 13 -- Ministers and heads of delegations from six of the eight countries that share the Earth's tallest cryosphere zone - the Himalayas - held a meeting hosted by Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay on the second day of COP29 on Tuesday, where Tobgay flagged that breaching the Paris Agreement's 1.5 degrees Celsius goal could trigger disasters that will spell doom for millions of people downstream.

"The HKH (Hindu Kush Himalayas) region - the biodiversity hotspot to the world, a repository of some of the world's largest amounts of ice, this water tower that supports almost 2 billion people - is at risk," Tobgay said.

"We are vulnerable, and the effects of climate change are already affecting our entire region. The fact th...