Melting glaciers are an urgent manifestation of accelerating climate change, with cascading planetary consequences that demand immediate climate action. With rising global average temperatures and rising greenhouse gas emissions, the future of glaciers around the world is bleak, with analysis of glacier mass loss over the past two decades suggesting that this trend is likely to continue regardless of emissions reductions.

Glaciers are critically important to the planet: They store nearly 69 percent of the world's freshwater reserves and sustain mountain ecosystems, wetlands, and biodiversity hotspots. There are an estimated 15,000 glaciers in the Himalayas alone, whose meltwater feeds major rivers such as the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, Mekong, and Yangtze, meeting the freshwater needs of an estimated 1.3 to 1.5 billion people in the lowlands. Large ice sheets, such as those in Antarctica and Greenland, regulate ocean currents and cool the atmosphere through the albedo effect (reflection of sunlight).

The consequences of melting glaciers are widespread:

• Sea level rise: The current melting of glaciers has already led to a significant increase in global average sea levels, which, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), have risen by approximately 20 cm since 1900.
• Disruption of ocean currents: Melting glaciers can disrupt ocean circulation patterns, such as slowing the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, which can destabilize weather far beyond glacial regions.
• Natural disasters: It leads to flooding of coastal cities if glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) in the mountains, which threatens communities and displaces millions of people.
• Loss of natural climate archives: Frozen layers of glaciers provide evidence of the changing temperatures and composition of the planet's atmosphere, which is being destroyed by their melting.
• Social and cultural impacts: The decline of glaciers is also a signal of massive ecological cataclysms, water crises and the collapse of cultural environments. For many indigenous and mountain communities, glaciers are sacred beings, protectors, ancestors and deities, and their loss causes cultural and spiritual trauma.

Some countries are already facing dire consequences. Slovenia and Venezuela are the first two countries to lose all of their glaciers completely. In the Alps, for example, the Marmolada Glacier in the Italian Dolomites collapsed in 2022, killing 11 climbers. The most recent collapse of the Birch Glacier in the Swiss Alps in 2025 sent 9 million cubic meters of rock and ice crashing into a valley. The Hindu Kush and Himalaya Assessment Report warns that even with ambitious global efforts, a third of the Himalayan glaciers could be lost by the end of the century.

Reactions and calls to action: Although some countries are experimenting with glacier protection, such as glaciers in Switzerland and afforestation projects on the Tibetan Plateau in China, these efforts remain fragmented and limited in scope. Legislative steps, such as the adoption of the first national glacier protection law in Argentina in 2010 and the creation of a natural habitat protection zone for Mont Blanc by the French government in 2020, are welcome steps. The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has recognized this urgent need and declared 2025 as the International Year of Glacier Conservation.

Glacial burials are a new way to cope with this loss, transforming grief into a form of resistance. In May 2025, a glacier funeral was held in Nepal for the Yala Glacier, which has shrunk by 66 percent since the 1970s. This was the fifth such funeral in the world, after the Okjökull Glacier (Iceland), Ayoloco (Mexico), Clark (USA), and Basòdino (Switzerland). These performative acts of climate resistance evoke memories, confront political inaction, and demand accountability for irreparable losses.

Addressing the continuing loss of glaciers requires a shift away from fragmented responses. It is essential to move from reactive crisis management to long-term, integrated planning, which addresses water management, disaster preparedness, food security, cultural heritage protection and transboundary cooperation in glacier-fed ecosystems. Glacier loss and its cascading impacts must be integrated into national policies and international dialogues on climate change and disaster risk reduction, with the participatory involvement of mountain communities as partners in planning. Glaciers must be recognized as planetary commons and ethical stewardship of their protection must be promoted.

Author: Soma Sarkar is an associate fellow in the Urban Studies Program at the Observer Research Foundation.