About this climate change thing

Himalayan glaciers 'melting fast'

Melting glaciers in the Himalayas could lead to water shortages for hundreds of millions of people, the conservation group WWF has claimed.

In a report, the WWF says India, China and Nepal could experience floods followed by droughts in coming decades.

Now, someone please explain to me in laymen's terms, why it is such a problem to do research on clean energy sources? The underlying point under this question, is that even if one does not believe in the global warming theories - about which I am not sure where I stand - carbone oxydes (CO and CO2 for example)are in great quantities are still not very good to breathe. So whether they cause global warming or not, what does it hurt to work on getting rid of them? And even if the Himalayan glaciers are not melting because of us, since we do not know for sure, doesn't it make more sense that we would work on getting cleaner fuels anyway, to be on the relatively safe side? And if it's a money/interests/stocks/business problem, then how about the fact that fossil fuels are bound to be exhausted at some point? I mean we have so many good reasons to invest seriously, vigourously and quite intentionally in clean fuels, that not doing so, just to prove a point to the environmentalists, seems totally cildish and counterproductive. Just a thought.