According to a study by the world cultural organization UNESCO, by 2050 the glaciers in one third of the UNESCO world natural heritage sites are expected to have melted. The eternal ice “will disappear there, regardless of efforts to limit the rise in temperature,” UNESCO said on Thursday. However, it is still possible to preserve glaciers on the remaining two-thirds of World Heritage sites.
To achieve this, global warming would have to be limited to 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial times. For the study, UNESCO, in cooperation with the international organization for environmental protection, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), examined 18,600 glaciers at 50 World Heritage sites. The glaciers of Yellowstone National Park, USA, and Africa’s highest mountain, Kilimanjaro, are likely doomed to melt. In Europe, some glaciers in the Pyrenees and Dolomites are likely to disappear within the next three decades.
Reduction of required CO2 emissions
The report is “a call to action”, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said ahead of the start of the 27th United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) on Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Only a “rapid reduction of CO2 emissions” can preserve the glaciers and the “extraordinary biodiversity” that is based on them. COP27 plays a “central role” in finding solutions to the problem.
According to UNESCO, the glaciers studied are losing 58 billion tonnes of ice annually, equivalent to the combined annual water consumption of France and Spain and responsible for nearly 5% of the observed sea level rise.