Tajikistan hosts international conference on glaciers’ preservation
Tajikistan hosted a major International Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation from 29 May to 1 June 2025 in Dushanbe to highlight the urgency of halting glacial retreat and to raise it to the top of the global climate agenda.
“Glaciers preservation is not just a problem of countries with glaciers but rather a global crisis that deserves the immediate attention of the international community,” said Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon in an opening address.
The conference culminated in the release of the Dushanbe Glaciers Declaration—a landmark document outlining actionable commitments, collaborative initiatives, and strategic recommendations to be presented at the UN Climate Change conference, COP30 in Brazil. It is one of the highlights of activities for the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation.
The World Meteorological Organization, Asian Development Bank and UNESCO are partners in organizing the conference, which is attended by government leaders and ministers, as well as UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed.
“The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Global Climate 2024 Report highlights that 2021-2024 represents the most negative three-year glacier mass balance period on record, and seven of the ten most negative annual glacier mass balances since 1950 have occurred since 2016,” said Amina Mohammed.
She cited figures from the World Glacier Monitoring Service that since 1975, glaciers have lost more than 9000 billion tons which is equivalent to a huge ice block of the size of Germany with 25 meters thickness.
There are more than 275,000 glaciers worldwide, covering approximately 700,000 km². Together with ice sheets, glaciers store about 70% of the global freshwater resources.
“Our glaciers are dying,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. “Nepal recently declared the loss of Langtang’s Yala Glacier. Venezuela has become the second country in the world after Slovenia to lose all its glaciers. The death of a glacier means much more than the loss of ice. It is a mortal blow to our ecosystems, economies, and social fabric,” she said.
Depletion of glaciers therefore threatens supplies to hundreds of millions of people who live downstream and depend on the release of water stored over past winters during the hottest and driest parts of the year. In the short-term, glacier melt increases natural hazards like landslides and floods.
This was dramatically illustrated by the collapse as part of a glacier in the southern Swiss Alps on 28 May, triggering a gigantic avalanche of ice, mud and debris which buried much of the small village of Blatten. There were no confirmed fatalities thanks to early warnings and evacuations, highlighting the importance of multi-hazard early warnings which many developing countries lack.
