UN Reports Warn of Accelerating Ice Loss, Rising Sea Levels
(MENAFN) Crossing the 1.5C global warming threshold could cause permanent damage to the planet’s ice systems, speed up rising sea levels and put water resources at risk worldwide, according to two UN-supported reports released Monday.
“Overshooting the 1.5C Paris Agreement target will bring large-scale, and in many cases irreversible, impacts from the Earth’s melting ice sheets, permafrost, glaciers, sea ice and polar oceans,” they said.
The assessments, developed with the participation of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), outlined mounting dangers associated with the shrinking of glaciers and polar ice sheets, declining sea ice and the thawing of permafrost.
The State of the Cryosphere 2026 report, endorsed and reviewed by more than 50 prominent scientists specializing in frozen regions, warned that existing global temperatures were “already unsafe” for the Arctic, Antarctic, mountain glaciers and polar oceans.
It highlighted that Switzerland had lost one-fifth of its glacier ice within five years. The report also pointed to faster sea-level rise that could affect hundreds of millions of people, alongside worsening water scarcity and growing mountain-related hazards as glaciers retreat and periods of unusually low snowfall become more widespread.
“Although returning to 1.5C will slow ice loss, a truly ‘safe’ temperature target for Earth’s ice is now thought to be closer to 1.0C or even below over the coming centuries,” the report noted.
“Overshooting the 1.5C Paris Agreement target will bring large-scale, and in many cases irreversible, impacts from the Earth’s melting ice sheets, permafrost, glaciers, sea ice and polar oceans,” they said.
The assessments, developed with the participation of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI) and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), outlined mounting dangers associated with the shrinking of glaciers and polar ice sheets, declining sea ice and the thawing of permafrost.
The State of the Cryosphere 2026 report, endorsed and reviewed by more than 50 prominent scientists specializing in frozen regions, warned that existing global temperatures were “already unsafe” for the Arctic, Antarctic, mountain glaciers and polar oceans.
It highlighted that Switzerland had lost one-fifth of its glacier ice within five years. The report also pointed to faster sea-level rise that could affect hundreds of millions of people, alongside worsening water scarcity and growing mountain-related hazards as glaciers retreat and periods of unusually low snowfall become more widespread.
“Although returning to 1.5C will slow ice loss, a truly ‘safe’ temperature target for Earth’s ice is now thought to be closer to 1.0C or even below over the coming centuries,” the report noted.
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