Over the past few weeks, a wave of publications from UN Water, the World Meteorological Organization and the Clean Air Fund have put forth an urgent message:
We are losing our glaciers.
They are retreating at an accelerated rate, and the consequences are not confined to remote mountaintops – they will affect us all.
Having spent much of my life scaling the high mountains of the Himalayas, I have seen this loss unfold firsthand. But translating that visceral experience into urgency for someone living in a coastal metropolis like Hong Kong or Mumbai can be challenging. From afar, glacier loss can seem distant; a tragic but abstract crisis.
Yet at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), where I lead a group of scientists and researchers, a central part of our mission is to bridge this gap: to illuminate how glacier retreat in the world’s highest mountains is entangled with the future of energy systems, water security, disaster risk and the lives and livelihoods of people far beyond these peaks.
The scale of change is staggering. According to a new series of briefs from China Water Risk (CWR), a Hong Kong-based think-tank focused on water and climate, the Earth has lost more than 50 million tonnes of ice every hour over the last three decades from both mountain and polar regions. This loss is not just a measurement – it’s a signal, and a sign of the systemic transformations already underway.
Nowhere is this shift as stark as in the Himalayas. Earlier this year, observers likened the snowless peak of Machapuchare in north-central Nepal to a “black rock pyramid”, a newspaper reported. This is a recurring phenomenon that mirrors the findings of ICIMOD’s 2024 snow assessment. The report paints a grim picture: from the Amu Darya in Central Asia to the Tarim in north-west China, all nine major river basins of the region reported reduced snow cover and persistence (the fraction of time snow remains on the ground).
The impacts may appear hyper-local in the short run, with mountain communities struggling to access clean drinking water as springs dry up. But this is just the beginning.
The Himalayan water towers feed the great rivers of Asia, arteries that sustain nearly two billion people. As glaciers shrink and snowfall patterns destabilise, a fundamental reshaping of these river systems is underway. This carries with it far-reaching implications not just for agriculture and domestic water use, but also energy, trade and the macroeconomic stability of nations.
According to CWR, 280 large cities lie within these river basins, collectively containing a staggering 865 gigawatts (GW) of power infrastructure. These are not marginal urban centres; they are engines of regional growth deeply reliant on predictable water flows.
Countries like Nepal, which currently exports electricity to energy-hungry neighbours, may face further challenges. The country’s national bank has estimated an annual electricity export potential of NPR 1.2-1.3 trillion (USD 8.7-9.4 billion). But this figure is premised on stable flows, consistent snowmelt and water availability. What happens when that foundation begins to falter?
The picture grows even more complex as we add a fourth layer of concern: permafrost. The long-frozen soil that undergirds much of the Himalayan highlands is beginning to thaw, and its thaw may usher in a new, under-explored frontier of risk.
Across the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, research on this frozen asset remains limited, even as evidence of its degradation mounts. The loss of permafrost threatens to destabilise landscapes, infrastructure and carbon cycles, the natural process of reusing carbon that sustains life. What was once locked away, such as large amounts of greenhouse gases and ancient pathogens, now threatens to escape.
The consequences of a changing permafrost can directly result in several billion dollars of damage by 2100. While that is still 75 years away, losses have not, and will not be confined to the financial. As ICIMOD’s water, ice, society and ecosystems report outlines, the thawing of permafrost and the loosening of bedrock may have contributed to disasters like the Chamoli flood of 2021, where glacial break triggered a deadly surge downstream. These are not isolated events; they are harbingers.
So where do we go from here?
World Glacier Day offers an opportunity to reflect, but also to act. It is a chance to renew our efforts in pushing for informed policy and decision-making to protect our cryosphere assets. We must shift our mindset from thinking of glaciers as distant features of a sublime landscape, to that of lifelines, integral to our shared security and sustainability.
The HKH region, home to the Third Pole, is facing a convergence of risks unlike anywhere else. Here, disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. A vicious cycle of warming and emissions is accelerating and will lead to peak water melt. Even achieving the 1.5C target of the Paris Agreement – a global benchmark of civilisational and ecological safety – would be too hot for the region’s cryosphere.
That’s why the glacier crisis is no longer a remote challenge. It is an acute signal of what’s at stake, and an opportunity to confront global inaction with urgency, cooperation and resolve.
On this inaugural day of glacier preservation, and at the start of what the United Nations is declaring the “Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences”, it is time for the voices of the high mountains of the HKH to be louder than ever before. We must be united, for the preservation of our cryosphere is not merely a regional concern, but a global imperative.
