Melting glaciers and rising sea levels: why 2C is too much
At climate talks held in Bonn, Germany each June, mountain, polar and low-lying countries come together in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) side event. Entitled “Mountain Water Loss and Sea Level Rise: Why 2°C Is Too High for 3.5 Billion People”, the event focused on the impact of the planet’s disappearing ice on climate ambitions and climate change mitigation, loss and damageand adapt.
The Bonn meeting of the UNFCCC’s subsidiary body, or ‘SB58’, will take place from 5 to 15 June this year. While primarily scientific and technical meetings, the meetings come at a pivotal time in the UNFCCC process, laying the groundwork for negotiators to prepare for December’s COP28, where the United Arab Emirates chairs the COP. The event clearly demonstrated that the main negotiating tracks of mitigation, loss and damage, and adaptation are closely related to the physical reality of snow and ice melt.as stated in the annual report State of the Cryosphere Report Published on COP27“There is no negotiation with the melting point of ice.”
Joanna Post (UNFCCC Secretariat), Eduardo Silva from Chile and Annika Christell from Sweden at the SB58 side event in Bonn, Germany in June. Photo: ICCI
The side event builds in part on a pre-conference cryosphere workshop – the first of its kind in UNFCCC negotiations – under the auspices of Ambition on Melting IceAMI) High-Level Panel on Sea Level Rise and Mountain Water Resources, which includes not only polar and mountainous countries, but also coastal and low-lying countries that are vulnerable to snow and glaciers and sea-level water loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
At the event, negotiators from a number of countries expressed their concerns about the impact of cryosphere loss, including Eduardo Silva from Chile (AMI co-chair); Carlos Fuller from low-lying Belize; polar Sweden Annika Christell; and Namgay Choden, a youth representative from the Himalayan nation of Bhutan. Together with leading scientists, these negotiators have delivered a clear message: 2°C is too much.
“Fifty percent of the Caribbean’s population lives in coastal areas,” Fuller said of the urgent need to cut emissions to keep global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius. He continued, “At the end of the day, if we don’t do this now, we’ve seen mass migration from Africa to Europe, from the Americas to the United States, and unless we start addressing this now, it’s going to get worse.”
Izabella Koziell, deputy director of the International Center for Integrated Mountain Development, at the UNFCCC side event. Photo: ICCI
An overview of the latest snow and ice science was given at the pre-conference workshop, with Pam Pearson, director of the committee International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), serving as the secretariat for AMI. Izabella Koziell, deputy director of the International Center for Integrated Mountain DevelopmentICIMOD) in support of eight regional member countries delivered a keynote address outlining the challenges facing the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.
The critical thresholds for major dynamic warming, including ice sheets, mountain glaciers and snowpack, permafrost, sea ice and polar oceans, are around 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius, with potentially devastating consequences for communities around the world. A nature study Articles published last week underlined that message.
Koziell describes the critical role of glaciers and snow in the Hindu Kush Himalayas, a region whose mountains provide the largest reservoir of frozen water outside the poles. “As we have heard from WMO, 1.5 degrees Celsius is already on our radar [World Meteorological Organization] Lately, it’s been too hot because the impacts are already there,” she said. “The potential impacts of warming of 1.5C and beyond are huge and will affect us all. “
“We’re losing glaciers rapidly, and that’s not only affecting our water and food security,” Choden said. “GLOF [glacier lake outburst floods] There will be enormous risks to forests and biodiversity, infrastructure, people and economies…[including] Hydropower and agriculture are two of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change and are closely related to the stability of the cryosphere. “
Urgent emissions reductions are critical to addressing the climate crisis and reducing the far-reaching, long-term and intergenerational impacts of snow and ice loss on a global scale. “With what we know today, 2 degrees Celsius shouldn’t even be on the table,” Fuller said.
The event is sponsored by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (scar), and ICCI and ICIMOD, available at: https://youtu.be/G2ZqulXY6YQ?list=PLBcZ22cUY9RL6ptbdJJzqbaZn62ZPOha_
Amy Imdieke is Director of Global Outreach for the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative.
glacier center is a climate communication initiative led by Ben Orloff, an anthropologist at the Columbia Climate Institute. Many of GlacierHub’s authors are students or alumni of the Climate School.
