In North America and around the world, 50 UNESCO World Heritage sites are home to glaciers. A news story warns that glaciers in a third of them will disappear by 2050 due to planet-warming carbon emissions.
The other two-thirds can still be stored, but only if global temperatures do not exceed 1. 5 degrees Celsius in pre-industrial times, according to UNESCO.
World Heritage sites are places with herbal and cultural heritage, which world leaders have agreed to protect.
The UNESCO report, released ahead of the COP27 climate convention that begins Sunday in Egypt, is being prepared.
About 18,600 glaciers have been discovered in World Heritage sites, and they make up about one-tenth of Earth’s glacial zone, but they are shrinking rapidly. % of the observed sea point increase in the world.
Africa’s last remaining glaciers are expected to melt through 2050, adding those in Kilimanjaro National Park and Mount Kenya. The fastest melting glaciers on the list are those in Three Parallel Rivers National Park in China’s Yunnan province. Glaciers have already lost more than 57% of their mass since 2000.
In the United States, ice masses or glaciers in Yellowstone and Yosemite National Parks will likely disappear by 2050. The glaciers along the Canada-U. S. borderU. S. Peace Park Waterton-Glacier has already lost more than a quarter of its volume in the afterlife. 20 years.
Other threatened glaciers include the Italian Dolomites, the French Pyrenees, Los Alerces National Park in Argentina, Huascarán National Park in Peru and Te Wahipounamu in New Zealand.
Melting glaciers are affecting not only the environment, but also people, Bruno Oberle, executive leader of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, said Thursday.
“When glaciers melt rapidly, millions of others face water shortages and an increased threat of grass-based bugs such as flooding, and millions more may simply be displaced by the resulting sea level rise,” Oberle said.
“This study highlights the pressing need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and invest in nature-based solutions, which can mitigate climate change and enable others to better adapt to its impacts. “
As world weather leaders gather for COP27, UNESCO is calling for the creation of a foreign glacier monitoring and preservation fund that would aid research, establish links between stakeholders and enforce crisis threats and early precautionary measures.
“This report is a call to action,” UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said in a statement. “Only an immediate relief in our CO2 emission levels can save glaciers and the exceptional biodiversity that covers them. “
The report referred to examines permanent ice or snow masses, of which glaciers are a subset. According to the latest collection of recent knowledge through the two knowledge bases used in the report, Yellowstone has several small bodies of ice, but not glaciers, that move.