COP29: Urgent calls from science and policy for immediate decarbonization

Today marks the official final day of COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan. As is often the case, a major breakthrough has yet to be achieved. This year’s COP has placed significant emphasis on securing financial commitments from wealthier nations to help poorer countries meet climate targets. However, the urgent need to drastically reduce emissions remains top priority.

Despite this, global carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, and the cryosphere is melting at an unprecedented rate, leading to catastrophic consequences already impacting hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. To limit global warming and prevent even more severe outcomes, the global community must finally take bold and decisive action.

In the open letter published today, undersigned by representatives of numerous scientific organizations and groups, leading international scientists call on all countries to reduce their emissions quickly and significantly.

Almost simultaneously, the ministers of the AMI member states (Ambition on Melting Ice High-level Group (AMI) on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources) are also calling on all nations to step up their efforts.

We are publishing the press releases from the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), including the scientists’ open letter and the AMI ministers’ statement. The reading of the open letter will be today at 10:00 AM CET during COP29 (see livestream below).

An S.O.S. From the Poles to World Leaders at COP29

On the last day of a deadlocked COP29, a group of leading polar and glacier research organizations issued an Open Letter urging immediate and substantial action to address the escalating climate crisis due to the risk of triggering irreversible global impacts from polar ice melt.

The Open Letter has been endorsed by, among others the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR), the European Polar Board (EPB), and the International Glaciological Society (IGS).

Taken at the initiative of several polar research programs alarmed at the lack of inaction in the face of growing observations of polar ice loss, the letter underscores the urgent need to uphold the +1.5°C global warming threshold set by the 2015 UN Paris Agreement.

“The changes in the cryosphere are not isolated events,” the letter emphasizes. “They cascade into widespread and severe impacts on climate stability, ecosystems, livelihoods, economies, and the safety of societies worldwide.”

The research bodies stress that exceeding the +1.5°C threshold risks triggering climate tipping points, with devastating consequences for current and future generations. They call on world leaders to meet their commitments under the 2015 UN Paris Agreement and implement robust policies and measures to keep the +1.5°C limit achievable.

The cryosphere – Earth’s ice-covered regions – is melting at an alarming rate. The State of the Cryosphere Report 2024 details the rapid loss of glaciers, ice sheets, and sea ice, alongside the thawing of permafrost. These changes are accelerating sea level rise, threatening to displace millions of people, and destabilizing ecosystems, economies, and societies.

Last year at COP28 in Dubai, over 1000 cryosphere scientists called for countries to focus on the lower 1.5°C Paris limit “because 2°C is too high” for the cryosphere; but this is the first time the leading polar research groups have weighed in on these threats in the climate talks, which remain deadlocked over lack of a clear financing goal.

“There is no more time to waste,” the Open Letter concludes. “Immediate and decisive action is not just necessary—it is essential for the future of our planet and humanity.”

Key messages from the Open Letter:

● The global climate is perilously close to exceeding the +1.5°C warming threshold, with profound consequences for the cryosphere and Earth system.

● Unprecedented ice loss is accelerating sea-level rise and exacerbating climate instability.

● Exceeding the +1.5°C limit risks triggering irreversible and uncontrollable shifts in the Earth’s climate, endangering ecosystems and societies worldwide.

● Immediate and decisive action is essential to meet commitments under the 2015 UN Paris Agreement to protect our future.

Press release by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative

The open letter, undersigned by 20 organisations

The fact that both the scientific community and several governments have sent an appeal to the leaders of all nations is proof of the urgency of making rapid and decisive progress in reducing emissions.

With their appeals, the scientists as well as the ministers of the AMI Group want to exert ultimate pressure to prevent the COP from failing again. The following AMI press release refers to the ministers’ statement, which was published on November 20.

Ministers call for greater progress at COP29 in Baku

Keep warming to 1.5°C to avert disastrous global loss and damage from ice melt

As the climate negotiations enter their end phase, members of the Ambition on Melting Ice High-level Group (AMI) on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources called on all countries to make greater progress at COP29, given sharpening risks of irreversible impacts from cryosphere loss.

The statement from AMI ministers said that the latest cryosphere science underscores the need for transformative climate action by 2030 to avert “destabilization, disruption and displacement at global scales” – all because of growing loss of the planet’s vital ice stores.

“Latest science points to feedbacks from polar and mountain regions from our current emissions trajectory that will have extreme and irreversible economic, social and environmental consequences throughout the planet,” said the joint statement.

“As a scientist, these impacts terrify me, said Dr. James Kirkham, AMI Chief Scientist. “But what terrifies me more is that the pace of global action to address these threats remains light-years away from what the science unanimously says we must do to minimize the global damage that continues to grow hour by hour.”

“Ice stores in our mountains are our fundamental life support system,” said Secretary Deepak Kharal, Government of Nepal. “On one side of the earth, ice is melting from the high altitudes. On the other side of the earth, countries are sinking into the ocean….in coming days, we need to work together to solve this.”

The AMI statement noted that science makes clear that the only way to avert and slow these global impacts from cryosphere loss is to implement rapid carbon emissions cuts, fully consistent with the lower 1.5°C Paris Agreement goal. Countries are due to update their climate targets or “Nationally Determined Contributions” (NDCs) early in 2025.

“1.5°C is not [just] an option.  We have to do it…but the window is very nearly closing,” stated Minister Céline Caron-Dagioni of Monaco.

Ambassador Julio Cordano, AMI Co-chair and Head of Delegation for Chile said: “With the new scientific information that we have available, we need to increase ambition and mitigation in order to contain the ripple effects that loss of cryosphere will have in many economic and social domains.”

The State of the Cryosphere 2024 report, published last week at COP29, warns that current climate commitments, leading the world to well over 2°C of warming, would bring disastrous and irreversible consequences for billions of people from global ice loss. Over 50 leading cryosphere scientists contributed to the annual report on the status of the world’s ice stores, coordinated by the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative (ICCI), which serves as the AMI Secretariat.

AMI, led by Chile and Iceland, was founded at COP27 to raise awareness of the risks and widespread damage caused by the loss of the Earth’s ice and snow stores in every country on Earth.

The group combines polar and mountain countries with downstream and low-lying nations bearing the brunt of sea-level rise, or suffering impacts such as loss of water supplies, droughts and floods through melting mountain glaciers. Palau and Germany both joined AMI earlier at COP29, bringing its membership up to 25 nations and underscoring the widespread nature of these impacts.

Palau is enormously vulnerable to sea-level rise of even 1 meter, which some high-end IPCC AR6 estimates show being breached by 2070, should today’s high emissions continue. Germany has suffered repeatedly from extreme floods caused in part by rapid snow melt in the Alps, alongside drought conditions at other times, exacerbated by low snowpack and disappearing glacier ice.

Despite the difficult negotiations in Baku, “I’m optimistic,” said Benjamin Karmorh of Liberia at the press conference. “It may be slow, but we have to continue to echo that this earth is in a crisis, and we have to work together to solve it.”

“We call on all countries to address the crisis in the cryosphere to avert destabilization, disruption and displacement at global scales, considering the long-term irreversible damage their countries will see from cryosphere loss without fully 1.5∞C-consistent NDCs,” said the ministers’ statement.

They stress that it is still possible to stay below the 1.5°C limit with little or no overshoot, but only if NDCs are brought into line with that limit, and if countries take the urgently necessary measures between now and 2030.

“Otherwise, global cryosphere will continue to thaw and melt, with irreversible and widespread global losses as a result. A planet with less or no cryosphere is a very different planet from that known by humanity throughout its existence,” the Statement concludes.

Find the recording of the press conference here. 

Press release by the Ambition on Melting Ice High-level Group (AMI) on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources

Featured image credit: Dean Calma / IAEA via Flickr, CC BY 2.0