Rohtang (Himachal Pradesh), Sep 22 - From a ridge atop the fast receding Rohtang glacier, renowned filmmaker Shekhar Kapur Tuesday made a plea to the world - Fight global warming so that 1.3 billion people dependent on the Himalayas for their daily water can live.

As world leaders gathered in New York for the day's UN General Assembly (UNGA) session which is to focus on climate change, Kapur made a direct telecast to them with the appeal: 'Stop blaming each other and start acting, because we have passed the deadline.'

Organised by the international NGO Greenpeace to coincide with the premiere of a film on climate change, 'The Age of Stupid', the telecast went from the Himalayas to New York on the eve of the UNGA session, and just two days before the Group of 20 nations is to meet in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to grapple with the negotiations that have been stalled on the way to the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December.

Kapur, who is to start shooting his next film 'Paani' in 2010, told IANS: 'It'll be about the water wars that will break out as we run out of water as a result of climate change. There will be 12-13 percent people in every city who can afford the water.

'They'll be the globalised people who will live in their city atop the flyovers (as conceived in the film). The rest will be the natives who will fight for the water. They'll worship water and wonder how we could have ever thought of using it to flush our toilets.'

The Rohtang glacier bifurcates and feeds the Chenab and the Beas rivers, two of the five lifelines of Punjab and the entire Indus river system that straddles India and Pakistan. Standing between an apple orchard and the banks of the Beas downstream of the glacier, farmer Mohinder Thakur told IANS: 'The rain and the snow are getting more erratic all the time.