The UN's scientific body holds the first global-awareness day for a vital part of the world's ecosystem – not to mention agriculture, industry and clean-energy production. CGTN's Ross Cullen reports.
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00:00Rapidly melting glaciers have profound impacts on people and the planet.
00:06The loss of the ice flows causes sea levels to rise,
00:09and it affects water supplies for agriculture, hydropower, and human settlements.
00:14For two days, UNESCO has been hosting scientists and policy makers
00:18for meetings and events focusing on glacier preservation,
00:22which is the theme of this year's World Water Day.
00:25It'll be largely these extreme events, the climate changes,
00:29that are going to force us to finally wake up.
00:32Lonnie Thompson is a distinguished earth science professor.
00:36For 30 years, he has drilled ice cores, explored ice sheets, and observed glacial retreats.
00:42Glaciers to me, they have no political agenda.
00:46They cannot be lobbied.
00:49Special interest groups, it doesn't matter.
00:51They just sum up temperature, precipitation, humidity, cloudiness, radiation,
00:56and they respond, and they're all responding in one direction in today's world,
01:00and they're retreating.
01:02UNESCO's report warns that retreating glaciers threaten the food and water supply
01:07of two billion people around the world.
01:10There's only one way we have to reduce our carbon emissions to the atmosphere, greenhouse gases.
01:16They have to be lowered, or we will lose all of our mountain glaciers
01:21and eventually the polar glaciers.
01:24China has been one of the key nations in developing local strategies
01:28to adapt to shrinking glaciers.
01:30It faces its own critically endangered glaciers, like Dagu in Sichuan province.
01:36Ice sheets are critical to life.
01:38Their meltwater is essential for drinking water, agriculture, industry,
01:43clean energy production, and healthy ecosystems.
01:46But a warming world is causing glaciers to disappear.
01:50It's hoped that events and initiatives like this can spur action
01:54to try to mitigate the impact of their loss.
01:57Ross Cullen, CGTN, Paris.