Vanishing glaciers

Imagine a world without glaciers – a future defined by rising tides, drinking water scarcity, and a global ecosystem transformed. In the wake of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, this UNESCO Courier podcast investigates the "great melt" and the global urgency to act.

The scale of the crisis is vast: Antarctica’s ice is melting three times faster than it was just a decade ago, while half of the world’s mountain ice could vanish by the end of the century.

In this episode, we revisit our Vanishing Glaciersissue, bringing together perspectives from scientists, Indigenous communities, and artists witnessing this shift. We explore the global response and how the loss of our "frozen reservoirs" is redrawing local lifestyles and cultural heritage. This journey features recorded insights from Anil Mishra (UNESCO) and Ko Barrett (WMO), alongside Douglas Hardy, a glacier specialist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Harvard researcher Emil Karpinski.

Credits: An episode by Anuliina Savolainen, production by Emmanuel Rudowski. Narration by Clare O’Hagan, with excerpts read by Max Kendrick and Anuliina Savolainen.

Media credits:

• 00:01:31 – 00:01:56 News extracts (Creative Commons Attribution license): “Record Ice Melting In Greenland” (Paul Morgan); “Devastation in Switzerland Today! Massive Glacier Collapse Buries The Village of Blatten” (DisasterToday); “Everest is melting. What does it tell us about climate change?” (Context News)

• 00:04:25: 00:04:53 Recording by the World Meteorological Organization: Launch of the International year of Glaciers’ Preservation; opening remarks by Ko Barrett, WMO Deputy Secretary-General.

• 00:14:39-15:24Music extract “someone, not something” from the album “Crying glacier” by Ludwig Berger and Vadret da Morteratsch

©Visual: The UNESCO Courier/ Sylvie Serpix

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