The Himalayan glaciers are melting. On Friday, the Nepalese cabinet met at the Mt. Everest base camp to call attention to the problem - and to demand money from the world's rich countries.

Perhaps one of the bitterest ironies of global warming is that, while rich countries are responsible for the lion's share of greenhouse gas emissions, it is primarily the world's poor countries that will suffer the worst consequences. Low-lying coastlines, particularly on the Indian subcontinent, will flood. Small island nations are at risk of losing valuable land and, as Nepal made clear on Friday, melting glaciers in the Himalayas threaten to cause catastrophic flooding in the short term and dangerous water shortages in the long term.

To draw attention to the plight of Himalayan glaciers, more than 20 Nepalese government ministers flew to the Mt. Everest base camp, at an altitude of 5,250 meters (17,192 feet), for a cabinet meeting on Friday. All were outfitted with oxygen masks and they stayed for just 20 minutes in an effort to protect the ministers from succumbing to altitude sickness. But during their short time at the "world's highest cabinet meeting," Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal signed the "Everest Declaration," which urges the global community to take significant action at the Copenhagen climate summit, which begins next week.

"The Himalayas are getting hot and we are getting the brunt of it because of the actions of the developed countries," said Environment Minister Thakur Prasad Sharma. "This cabinet meeting was meant to highlight our point that we are being punished for no mistake of our own."

Nepal has joined forces with other developing countries to demand that the world's richest countries make a sum equivalent to 1.5 percent of their GDP available to fight climate change in poorer countries. Nepal is responsible for just 0.025 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.