According to a report by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), glaciers have disappeared faster than ever before, with the most losses in the last three years of glacier populations.
Michael Zemp, director of the World Glacier Monitoring Services, announced at a press conference that the report was announced at UN Bessever in Geneva.
Dramatic ice loss from the Arctic to the Alps from South America to the Tibetan Plateau, opens a new label that is expected to accelerate with climate change, which is due to the burning of fossil fuels that will increase global temperatures. As sea levels rise, these key water sources decrease, which could exacerbate economic, environmental and social problems around the world.
The report coincides with the UNESCO summit in Paris, marking the first world of glaciers, urging global action to protect glaciers around the world.
Zemp said the biggest losses in the past six years were in five years, with glaciers losing 450 gigabits of mass in 2024 alone.
Accelerated losses have made mountain glaciers one of the biggest contributors to sea level rise, putting millions of risks under the risk of devastating flooding and undermining the waterways that billions of people rely on hydropower and agriculture.
Stefan Uhlenbrook, director of water and ice spheres at the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), said about 275,000 glaciers worldwide remain globally, and together with Antarctic and Greenland ice papers account for about 70% of the world’s freshwater.
“We need to improve scientific knowledge, we need to advance through better observation systems, better predictions and better early warning systems for the planet and people,” Uhlenbrook said.
Danger and Gods
Due to the increased risk of natural hazards and unreliable water sources, approximately 1.1 billion people live in mountainous communities, causing the most direct impact of glacier losses. Remote locations and difficult terrain also make cheap fixes difficult to implement.
In areas that rely on fresh water that accumulates snow, temperature rises are expected to worsen drought while increasing the severity and frequency of hazards, such as avalanches, landslides, mountain flooding and glacial lake outbreak flooding (GLOFS).
A Peruvian farmer living downstream of the glacier brought the issue to court, suing German energy giant RWE, to cause a portion of the flood defense that caused a glacial lake to be proportional to its historic global emissions.
Heidi Sevestre, Glacier Doctor, Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program Secretariat Reuters outside UNESCO headquarters in Paris on Wednesday.
“What happened in some areas is actually much faster than we expected,” Sevestre added, noting that a recent trip to the Democratic Republic of East Africa, located in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, now expected to disappear by 2030.
Sevestre has worked with the indigenous Bakonzo community in the region, who believe a deity called Kitasamba lives in the glaciers.
“Can you imagine their deep spiritual connection to the glaciers, what could this strong attachment and what might mean for their glaciers to disappear?” Sevester said.
According to a new UK period report, melting glaciers in East Africa has led to an increase in local conflicts, and despite its small global impact, the trick flow of melting glaciers around the world is complex.
Between 2000 and 2023, melted mountain glaciers caused global sea levels to rise by 18 mm, about 1 mm a year. According to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, each millimeter can be exposed to flooding every year.
“Knowing or not, billions of people are connected to the glaciers, which will require billions of people to protect them,” Severestre said.
