Yangyel Lhaden

To raise awareness and promote action to preserve glaciers, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2025 as the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation (IYGP). For the first time, March 21 will be observed as the World Day for Glaciers.

The initiative was unanimously adopted at the 36th United Nations-Water Meeting in 2022. The UN-Water Members and Partners decided to align the World Water Day campaign theme as “Glaciers’  preservation” accompanied by the proclamation of March 21 of each year as the World Day for Glaciers starting in 2025.

There are more than 75,000 glaciers worldwide covering about 700,000 square kilometres and with ice sheets storing about 70 percent of the global freshwater.

With the changing climate and rising global temperatures, glaciers are at risk and are melting due to both climate-induced and non-climate-induced drivers. In 2023, glaciers suffered the largest mass loss in the five decades of record-keeping and it was the second consecutive year in which all regions of the world with glaciers reported ice loss, according to the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Last year was recorded as the warmest year on record by the WMO. It is also the year the global average temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels for the first time in a single year. This marks a significant milestone, highlighting the world’s failure to limit warming as agreed upon in the 2015 Paris Agreement, where member states committed to keeping global temperature rise well below two degrees Celsius and ideally limiting it to 1.5 degrees Celsius. 

In the line of events to observe the IYGP, the IYGP will be launched on January 21, and first World Day for Glaciers  will be held in New York and Paris, followed by observing World Water Day with focus on glaciers on  March 22.

“The 2025 global campaign for the World Day for Glaciers and World Water Day will highlight the various impacts of glacier changes on downstream communities and ecosystems,” according to the official website of the event. “It will emphasise the urgent need for developing water-related adaptation strategies in areas affected by shrinking or disappearing glaciers, promoting transboundary cooperation and community engagement, and supporting ambitious reductions in fossil fuel consumption.”

The campaign also plans to engage youth audiences and develop synergies with the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences, which will run from 2025 to 2034.

In addition, IYGP aims to expand the global glacier monitoring system to enhance data collection and analysis, develop early warning systems for glacier-related hazards, promote sustainable water resource management in glacier-dependent regions, preserve cultural heritage and traditional knowledge tied to glacier environments, and involve youth in glacier preservation efforts and climate action.

As a mountainous nation in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region, Bhutan ranks 38th among the most vulnerable country to climate change threats but lags at 62nd in preparedness, according to the State of Climate in Asia report 2023. While Bhutan has achieved better scores in observation and forecasting, it continues to face challenges in warning systems, dissemination of information, and disaster preparedness, highlighting the urgent need for action in glacier-dependent regions like Bhutan.

The three benchmark glaciers monitored annually are also reporting rapid loss of glaciers over the years with water loss in billions annually.

The Gangjula glacier, which is the headwater of Phochhu and Punatsangchhu, recorded a thickness of 96.4 metres in 2019. Between 2004 and 2020, the glacier had lost 30 percent of its ice—which is 6.3 billion water loss in 16 years.

This has caused annual water loss of 369 million litres. The glacier is expected to be lost within this century.

Thana Glacier, the headwater of Chamkharchhu and Manas basin with a thickness of 210 metres is losing 6 billion litres of water annually, which is 7 percent of the glacial ice.

The data with NCHM shows that in between 2016 and 2020, approximately 17 Gigatonnes of glacial ice is lost.

The glacier mass balance of Shodug glacier, the headwater of Thimchhu with thickness of 126.6 metres (2021) in between 2021 reduced to minus 1,762.29 millimetres water per annum in 2022.

According to Bhutan Glacial Lake Inventory 2021, Bhutan has 567 glaciers covering 55.04Km square—Phochhu has the maximum.

In the face of changing climate and weather patterns, lack of disaster risk knowledge, observations and forecasting, dissemination and communication, and preparedness to respond are the major challenges facing Bhutan and the world, according to State of Climate in Asia report 2023

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