With Cop27 Underway Recent Report Paints Worrying Picture of Glacier Melt

3rd November 2022

Last modified on February 9th, 2023

UNESCO says some of the most well-known glaciers in the world will have melted by 2050. They include the Dolomites in Italy, Mt Kilimanjaro and those in the Yosemite & Yellowstone parks in the USA. Alpine glaciers will also be affected.

UNESCO monitors around 18,600 glaciers, about 10% of the world’s glacier areas, across 50 of its World Heritage sites.

It says that a third of those could melt by 2050.

UNESCO-protected glaciers are losing 58 billion tonnes of ice every year – that’s equivalent to the total combined annual amount of water used in France and Spain.

The report makes its projections based on satellite data and comes as world leaders meet in Egypt for the COP27 climate change conference.

Leaders from 120 countries are meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to discuss next steps in curbing climate change.

Over the course of the last century, temperatures in the Alps have increased by around 2°C, or twice the global average.

“As glacier keep retreating at an accelerated rate, glacial hazards such as glacial lake outburst floods are likely to increase and have disastrous consequences for the populations and biodiversity of entire regions downstream,” warns the UNESCO report.

Limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels is the only way to save the remaining glaciers according to scientists.

Last summer a collapsing glacier in the Dolomites in Italy killed 11 people.