Day: November 3, 2022

A new United Nations study concludes that one-third of the world’s major glaciers will be gone by 2050 at their current rate of melting.

The study, released Thursday, was conducted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), in partnership with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The research focused on glaciers in 50 designated UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The heritage sites are home to 18,600 glaciers spanning around 66,000 kilometers and representing almost 10% of areas covered by glaciers.

The researchers say the glaciers at these sites have been retreating at an accelerated rate since 2000 due to carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, which lead to warmer temperatures.

The researchers report the glaciers are currently losing 58 billion tons of ice every year — equivalent to the combined annual water use of France and Spain — and are responsible for nearly 5% of observed global sea-level rise.

The glaciers at these sites include the highest in the world, near Mount Everest in the Himalayas, on the border of Nepal and China; the longest, found in Alaska; and Africa’s last remaining glaciers, including Kilimanjaro National Park and Mount Kenya.

Glaciers in Europe and Latin America are likely to vanish as well.

The report concludes that glaciers in the heritage sites are likely to disappear in the next 28 years, regardless of efforts to limit temperature increases. The researchers say it is still possible to save the glaciers in the remaining two-thirds of sites if the rise in temperatures does not exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to the pre-industrial period.

In addition to drastically reduced carbon emissions, UNESCO is advocating for the creation of an international fund for glacier monitoring and preservation. Such a fund would support comprehensive research, promote exchange networks among all stakeholders and implement early warning and disaster risk reduction measures.

With the report released just three days before the U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP27) begins in Sharm El-Sheikh Egypt, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay said the report “is a call to action.”

From her Twitter account, Azoulay wrote, “Only a rapid reduction in our CO2 emissions levels can save glaciers and the exceptional biodiversity that depends on them. COP27 will have a crucial role to find solutions. UNESCO will support states in pursuing this goal.”

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations reports that up to 222 million people globally are facing acute hunger — and that 47 million of them in the Greater Horn of Africa.

Most parts of the region are battling the worst drought in 40 years. After four consecutive years of drought and a fifth season of failed rains looming, health experts fear great loss of life.

A new World Health Organization analysis of seven countries in the region finds disease outbreaks and climate-related emergencies have reached their highest level this century.

Analysts have recorded a total of 39 health emergencies this year in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda.

Egmond Evers, the WHO’s Incident Manager for Greater Horn of Africa Food Insecurity and Health, said the food insecurity crisis in the region also is a health crisis, and that these twin disasters are interrelated.

“Malnourished people become sick more easily and sick people become malnourished more easily. The outcomes when disease and malnutrition are combined are much worse,” he said. “We know this because the combination of cholera and malnutrition, measles and malnutrition, common childhood diseases and malnutrition — there is more severe disease and more death. We know globally already that 45 percent of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition.”

Evers said lack of food also leads to increased displacement. People who suffer from food insecurity, he said, leave their homes in search of something to eat. He notes this makes the region’s more than 18 million refugees and internally displaced people particularly vulnerable to illness and death.

“Displacement means interruption of life-saving health care, such as immunization, maternal and childcare, but also increased risks, such as poor water and sanitation, overcrowding, malnutrition, risky coping behaviors, and loss of life events,” said Evers. “We are seeing that these public health events are becoming more common and the combination with increasing food insecurity and malnutrition, means they will also be more deadly.”

Drought is not the only extreme weather event in the region. In recent weeks, Sudan and South Sudan have been hit with widespread torrential rains.

The WHO said South Sudan is experiencing its fourth consecutive year of flooding; an estimated 40 percent of the country is under water.

Source: Voice of America