Major glaciers will disappear completely by 2050, says UN report

Some of the most famous glaciers in the world, including the Dolomites in Italy, Yosemite and Yellowstone parks in the United States, and Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, are expected to disappear by 2050 due to global warming, whatever the scenario of increase. temperature, according to a UNESCO report.

UNESCO, the cultural agency of the United Nations (UN), monitors around 18,600 glaciers in 50 of its World Heritage sites and has revealed that they, in a third of the observed locations, will disappear by 2050, regardless of the applied climate scenario.

While other glaciers can be saved by keeping the global temperature rise to a maximum of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, in a scenario of emissions equal to today’s standards, around 50% of World Heritage glaciers could disappear almost entirely. up to 2100.

“This report is a call to action. Only a rapid reduction in our levels of CO2 emissions can save glaciers and the exceptional biodiversity that depends on them,” explained Audrey Azoulay, director-general of UNESCO, in a statement.

She added that the UN COP27 climate conference will play a crucial role in helping to find solutions to this problem.

UNESCO-defined World Heritage glaciers represent around 10% of the world’s glacier areas and include some of the world’s best-known glaciers, the loss of which is highly visible as they are focal points for global tourism.

The report’s lead author, Tales Carvalho, told Reuters that World Heritage glaciers on average lose about 58 billion tonnes of ice each year, equivalent to the total annual volume of water used in France and Spain combined. , and contribute to almost 5% of the global volume of sea level rise.

UNESCO recommends that, given the inevitable further shrinkage of many of these glaciers in the near future, local authorities should make the glaciers a policy focus, improving monitoring and research and implementing disaster risk reduction measures.