Nepal's leader says his country is paying the price of climate change

Four weeks after catastrophic flash floods ravaged Nepal , the small Himalayan country's prime minister stood at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to warn leaders about the impact of a warming world. "I wish I could stand here today simply to speak about development, democracy, peace and the hopes of a young nation. Instead, I must speak about death and destruction of epic proportions," Prime Minister Balendra Shah said in his UNGA address Thursday. The Nepalese leader stressed that the perils of climate change transcend national borders as he made a case for greater international cooperation for protecting the Himalayas. "The Himalayas are not peripheral to the planet.