Glaciers around the world are melting at the fastest rates ever recorded, with record losses observed over the past three years, according to a UNESCO report published today.

“Glacier preservation is not merely an environmental, economic, and social necessity. It is a matter of survival,” emphasized the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Andrea Celeste Sauro, on the occasion of today’s first-ever International Glacier Day.

The 9,000 gigatons of ice that have been lost from glaciers since 1975 are approximately “equivalent to a piece of ice the size of Germany, 25 meters thick,” explained Michael Zemp, director of the Global Glacier Monitoring Service based in Switzerland, during a press conference presenting the UNESCO report.

The dramatic loss of ice, from the Arctic to the Alps, and from Latin America to Tibet, is expected to accelerate due to climate change caused by fossil fuels, which is increasing Earth’s temperature. This is likely to exacerbate economic, environmental, and social problems worldwide as sea levels rise and the volume of glaciers, a key water source, decreases.

According to Zemp, five of the last six years have seen the largest losses in glacier volume, with 450 gigatons lost just in 2024. At the current rate, many glaciers in Western Canada and the US, Scandinavia, Central Europe, the Caucasus, New Zealand, and the tropics will not survive into the 21st century, the WMO noted.

The accelerating rate at which glaciers are melting is one of the key factors contributing to the rise in sea levels, putting thousands of people at risk of flooding and destroying waterways upon which billions of people rely for hydroelectric power and agriculture.

Stefan Uhlenbrook, Director of Water and Cryosphere at the WMO, stated that there are approximately 275,000 glaciers left worldwide, which account for about 70% of Earth’s fresh water.

Environmental Risks
Around 1.1 billion people live in mountainous communities, which are particularly affected by the direct impacts of glacier loss due to the increased risk of natural disasters and unreliable water sources.

The rise in Earth’s temperature is also expected to worsen droughts in areas that rely on snow for water, while increasing the intensity and frequency of natural disasters such as landslides, avalanches, flash floods, and lake overflows formed by glaciers.

According to the UNESCO report, the melting of glaciers in East Africa has led to an increase in conflicts over access to water.

Moreover, from 2000 to 2023, due to the reduction in glacier volume, the global sea level has risen by 18 millimeters, nearly one millimeter per year. Each additional millimeter exposes approximately another 30,000 people to flooding, noted the Global Glacier Monitoring Service.

For the UN, the only solution to the problem is addressing global warming by limiting greenhouse gases that cause the greenhouse effect.

“We can negotiate many things at the UN, but we cannot negotiate the laws of physics that govern ice melt,” emphasized Uhlenbrook.