Glaciers melting faster than ever, risking a flood of consequences -- UN report

The Manila Times

Glaciers melting faster than ever, risking a flood of consequences -- UN report   Glaciers around the globe are melting faster than ever, with the last three years  seeing the largest glacial mass loss on record, according to a UNESCO report released on March 21, 2025. The dramatic ice loss, totaling 9,000 gigatons since 1975, is expected to continue accelerating and could lead to a flood of economic, environmental and social problems as sea levels rise while key water sources dwindle. The accelerated melting has made mountain glaciers the largest contributors to sea level rise, put millions at risk of devastating floods and hurt water flows that billions depend on for hydroelectric energy and agriculture.   GREENPEACE HANDOUT / REUTERS / UNTV   Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein    #TheManilaTimes  #tmtnews  #glaciers  #unitednations

Transcript

00:00Good afternoon everybody, thank you very much indeed for attending this.

00:04It exposes an additional two to three hundred thousand people to annual flooding.

00:10...glacier loss from year to year. If you sum up all the loss of ice that we had, you can show...

00:19Now 2024, we lost 450 gigatons from all the glaciers together. It was not the most extreme

00:27year, but it was ranked number four of the years with most glacier mass loss.

00:34And if you look at the past years, we actually had like the five most negative years on record

00:40we did have in the past six years. So you see this increasing dramatic glacier loss from year to year.

00:58We had an increasing loss by glacier ice year by year by year,

01:04accumulating in this incredible number of about 9,000 gigatons of ice lost since 1975.

01:12Now this is just a huge number and hard to imagine. So again, if you take the example of Germany,

01:20it would be an ice block of the size of Germany with a thickness of 25 meters.

01:26That is the ice that we lost since 1975 from glaciers.

01:32It was not the most extreme year, but it was ranked number four.

01:37And so accumulated again, this is about 25 millimeters of sea level rise, or currently

01:43a bit more than one millimeter each year. Now you might say one millimeter is not exactly a lot,

01:49doesn't sound much, right? But it's a small number with a big impact. Each additional

01:55millimeter of sea level rise exposes an additional two to 300,000 people to annual flooding.

02:18So that's bad news. Glaciers might disappear on the current

02:21melting rates within this century. But there's a second bad news. Even if these glaciers are gone,

02:28the glacier melt continues in the polar regions, will kick in and so will continue to melt and

02:35further increase sea levels together with the ice sheets in the next centuries.

02:51So

03:14really every tenth of a degree of warming that we can avoid

03:19will prevent us from 2.5 millimeter of sea level rise from glaciers alone. And again,

03:27which prevents about 500,000 of people from exposure to annual flooding.

03:34Just introduce yourself by affiliation.

03:39But globally we can say we have some 275,000 glaciers left, disappearing quickly. And in total

03:46the glaciers together with the ice masses on the ice shelves of Greenland as well as Antarctica,

03:51it's about 70 percent of all the fresh water is stored in the ice mass. Important to know is that

03:58WMO only last month declared 2024 as the warmest year on record, after a number of record-breaking

04:06months with highest temperatures. And we can negotiate many things, and here at the UN we

04:11love to negotiate many things, but we cannot negotiate physical laws. And one is the melting

04:15point of ice. This is unnegotiable, and then an increasing warming climate is

04:22contributing to more ice as well as snow melt.

04:33It's putting at risk the water supplies, it's putting at risk food security, energy security,

04:39as well as the ecosystem services that water resources and other resources provide.

04:44But you shouldn't also forget the social, the cultural, as well as the

04:48spiritual values glaciers have.

04:52But you shouldn't also forget the social, the cultural, as well as the spiritual values glaciers have.

05:22Preserving glaciers is not only an environmental imperative, it's really a survival strategy.

05:40We need to advance our scientific knowledge, we need to advance us through better observing

05:43systems, through better forecasts and better early warning systems for the planet and the

05:48people.

05:50Only then we can protect our water supplies, the livelihoods of people as well as ecosystems

05:56for future generations.

06:20For more UN videos visit www.un.org

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