Photo: ICIMOD Deputy Director General, Izabella Koziell spoke to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the heads of states of mountain countries in a high-level roundtable chaired by the Hon Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal at COP28 UAE. Image: UNFCCC

Dubai, [13 December, 2023] – Alarmed at the lack of urgency the past two weeks in Dubai, over 1000 cryosphere scientists have called on leaders at COP28 to heed signals from what they call “ground zero for climate change”: the Earth’s cryosphere, or snow and ice regions.

Calling the continued rise in CO2 from fossil fuels “insanity,” the scientists – many of them IPCC authors – urged the inclusion of “ice” factors explicitly in the Global Stocktake language. “Yesterday’s text refers to cryosphere just once, as one of many “ecosystems,” said Dr. Regine Hock, who coordinated the Mountains chapter of the IPCC’s 2019 Special Report on Oceans and the Cryosphere (SROCC). “But preserving ice sheets and glaciers by cutting fossil fuel emissions holds the key to continued existence for human communities worldwide.”

When cryosphere is taken seriously, “1.5°C is not merely preferable to 2°C. It is the only option,” says the scientists’ Call.

“Look at how much ice we’re losing today, at 1.2°C,” continued Dr. James Kirkham, who serves as the chief science advisor to the 23-nation “Ambition on Melting Ice” (AMI) High-level Group, which met here earlier this week and focuses on the disastrous consequences planet-wide for coastlines, water and food security. “Because of the huge global impacts of ice loss, even 1.5°C is too high,”

“Leaders need to understand that what happens in the cryosphere does not stay there: the impacts are global and mostly irreversible,” said Dr. Florence Colleoni, who speaks for dozens of Antarctic ice scientists with the international Scientific Committee for Antarctic Research (SCAR). “And it’s all about how much CO2 we pump into the atmosphere from fossil fuels.”

The three scientists were among over two dozen who marked on Sunday the 10-meter sea-level rise line cutting straight across the COP28 venue.  “If current emissions continue, this level could be reached in the late 2200’s: the IPCC has said that by 2300, even 15 meters cannot be ruled out,” added Colleoni, who joined scientists holding yellow “Caution” tape to mark the line.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has frequently cited these physical cryosphere boundaries in Dubai, where he returned on Monday to spur negotiations; he has visited Antarctica and the Himalayas in the past weeks, saying, “glaciers are retreating: we cannot.”

Dr Miriam Jackson, IPCC Lead Author with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, headquartered in Kathmandu, says: “By 2ºC, the human and ecosystem impacts in our region will be huge. We cannot adapt to these changes quickly enough and need to slow things down now.”

“The warming impact of CO2, around 80% from fossil fuel use, already has led to steep glacier and ice sheet loss causing global sea-level rise; reduction of water resources from snowpack; growing CO2 and methane emissions from thawing permafrost; dramatic reduction of sea ice…and stress on keystone polar marine species such as krill, salmon and cod,” says the Call.

“The current Global Stocktake text totally ignores these realities,” concluded Pam Pearson, a former diplomat and Director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative. “Every time you see terms like “coastal communities,” “slow onset events,” “water availability,” even “loss and damage” – almost all of that is cryosphere. We need that term explicitly used and recognized throughout the GST text, because it makes ice-clear why we need to remain within 1.5°C by phasing out fossil fuel use as early as we possibly can.”

Or as the Call concludes, “The melting point of ice pays no attention to rhetoric, only to our actions.”

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