Achim Steiner, speaking ahead of the U.N. Security Council’s first-ever debate on climate change, said that global warming should be considered a security issue as shortages of water and fertile land in the next 10 to 20 years may lead to conflicts.
The melting of the Himalayan glaciers is expected to displace millions of people from low-lying land as sea levels rise, and will disrupt river flows and irrigation of agricultural land.
"When people start moving, it puts people into competition with one another," Steiner told Reuters in a phone interview from Nairobi.
The Himalayan glaciers, which feed rivers in India and China, are among the fastest-melting in the world.
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