GENEVA, NOVEMBER 1 – A High Mountain Summit has issued a Call for Action in the face of rapid melting of the Earth’s frozen peaks and the consequences for food, water and human security, as well as for ecosystems, the environment and economies.
The three-day summit, convened in Geneva by the World Meteorological Organization and a wide range of partners, identified priority actions to support more sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation both in high-mountain areas and downstream.
“The high mountain regions are the home of the cryosphere, and source of global freshwater that are transmitted by rivers to much of the world. Preservation of ecosystem function and services from these regions is essential to global water, food and energy security,” says the Call for Action.
“This summit has placed the delicate mountain ecosystems at the center of world attention”, Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado, Permanent Representative of Italy to the International Organizations in Geneva said after the meeting: “High mountain ecosystems, and glaciers in particular, offer a precious reserve of fresh water, and they are located near the most densely populated areas of the world ”.
Climate change and development are creating an unprecedented crisis in our high mountain earth system that threatens the sustainability of the planet. “There is great urgency to take global action now to build capacity, invest in infrastructure and make mountain and downstream communities safer and more sustainable. This action must be informed by science, local knowledge and based on transdisciplinary approaches to integrated observations and predictions,” the call of action says.
“We, the participants at the WMO High Mountain Summit 2019, hereby commit to the goal that people who live in mountains and downstream should have open access to hydrological, cryospheric, meteorological, and climate information services to help them adapt to and manage the threats imposed by escalating climate change,” proclaims the Call to Action committing itself to a new Integrated High Mountain Observation and Prediction Initiative as one of the tools to address the challenges of climate change, melting snow and ice and water-related hazards and stress.
It urges that sustainable mountain development and mountain ecosystem conservation should be an integral part of international development policy, and that there should be strengthened transboundary cooperation in open data sharing, forecasting and prediction, policy development and knowledge generation and sharing.
“It is very clear that the choices we make and urgent action we take now, are critical for safeguarding our high mountain regions. This Summit has succeeded in connecting science, policy and practice to define the roadmap for climate action,” said Mountain Research Initiative Executive Director Carolina Adler, who was co-chair of the summit. “We need to ensure that the science responds to people’s needs, supporting the information services they rely on to address risks.”
Water towers of the world
Mountain regions cover about a quarter of the Earth’s land surface and are home to around 1.1 billion people. They are known as the “water towers of the world” because river basins with headwaters in the mountains supply freshwater to over half of humanity, including in the Himalaya-Hindu Kush and Tibetan Plateau region, known as the Third Pole.
Presentations from around the globe highlighted that glacier and snow melt translates into a short-term increase in hazards like landslides and floods and a long-term threat to the security of water supplies for billions of people.
“We need to identify solutions,” said conference co-chair John Pomeroy, Canada Research Chair in Water Resources & Climate Change; Director, Centre for Hydrology of University of Saskatchewan, and Director, Global Water Futures Initiative.
“We can choose a future of action and solutions based on science and knowledge which support cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and climate change adaptation and mitigation. We can use water – and thus mountains – as a source of peace. Or we can have a dismal future. Time is running out,” he said.
Swiss Federal Councillor and Interior Minister Alain Berset described how Swiss glaciers have lost 10% of their volume in the past 5 years, including 2 % in the last year. 500 smaller glaciers have disappeared and by the end of the century, 90% of the remaining 4000 glaciers may melt.
During the summer 2019 heatwaves, the equivalent of Switzerland’s annual national drinking water consumption melted from its glaciers in just 15 days, according to MeteoSwiss.
The summit declaration voices concern that “water security is becoming one of the greatest challenges of the world’s population, and that the uncertainties on the availability of freshwater from mountain rivers is a significant factor of risk for local and downstream ecosystems, agriculture, forestry, food production, fisheries, hydropower production, transportation, tourism, recreation, infrastructure, domestic water supply, and human health.” (@OnuItalia)
