A glacier containing the biggest ice field outside of the Arctic and Antarctic is in grave danger of disappearing within just 30 years unless drastic action to reduce CO2 emissions is taken now.
Greenpeace photographed the Rongbuk Glacier on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau on Mount Everest’s northern slopes earlier this year. In comparing their recent picture to one taken in 1968, the environmental group recorded a huge reduction in ice fields.
The glaciers within the plateau are the source of Asia’s biggest rivers – the Yangtze, the Yellow, the Indus and the Ganges.
“A big piece of the Rongbuk glacier has disappeared,” said Li Yan, one of the Greenpeace expedition members. “The demise of the ice towers is the most significant sign of global warming in the Himalayas. But this is just one example of what is happening right across the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. All the glaciers are depleting, threatening the livelihoods of millions of people.”
India is particularly vulnerable to the affects of the glacial melt according to Achim Steiner, Chief of the United Nations Environment Programme. Steiner added: “Such a decline in the glaciers will lead to mass migration and possible conflicts over valuable resources such as agricultural land and fresh water.”
This is a sentiment echoed by Dr PK Vasudeva, who wrote in the India’s Central Chronicle newspaper earlier this week. “Within the lifetime of many of us, the Ganges could be a pale shadow of its current glory,” he said. “Shoreline cities and town and, including Mumbai, could be compelled to build dykes to keep out the invading seas; agricultural yield in the fecund Gangetic plains could become insufficient to feed our one billion populations, unless we act now,” he added.
