Ice Matters Declaration

1451 dead. Over 5000 still missing. Damage equivalent to 10% of Nepal’s GDP. One disaster.

This year has already provided too many tragic reminders of the threat that melting ice poses to the world, especially in one that is about to dramatically overshoot its temperature targets.

As scientists who observe, measure and model the melt of the cryosphere — Earth’s frozen regions — as well as the degradation of its polar oceans, the increasing global impacts of cryosphere loss do not surprise us. Many of us have personally experienced clear-day flooding of our homes; long stretches of extreme weather; wildfires, knowing much of their origins lie in accelerating ice loss in faraway polar and mountain regions.

For each additional increment of CO2 in the atmosphere from fossil fuel use, such damage will expand. The cryosphere and our polar oceans are unforgiving in their response to overshoot. Rising seas from melting glaciers and polar ice sheets. Disrupted ocean currents. Destabilized homes, critical infrastructure and mountainsides from thawing permafrost. Disrupted water supply from snowpack and glacier decline. Extinctions and die-off of marine species and birds in key high latitude oceans due to warming and acidification.

Some of these impacts will be near-immediate, others will unfold over decades and centuries. Common to all, however, is that the scale of damage and ultimate adaptation needs will be largely irreversible, and decided by just how much overshoot we allow, as the recent UNEP Overshoot reports make clear — that on Cryosphere, especially.

Yet in stark contrast to Oceans, the Cryosphere remains essentially ignored in UN climate negotiations under the UNFCCC and its Paris Agreement, despite growing global damage from its loss. The Cryosphere provides one of the strongest examples of why further delay is unacceptable: without immediate transition from fossil fuels, the costs of both adaptation and loss and damage will grow; and feedbacks from permafrost emissions, sea ice loss and polar oceans will raise barriers to effective mitigation.

As scientists in an era of overshoot and increasing attacks on scientific integrity, we plead with global leaders to reflect the lessons of Cryosphere science squarely across all aspects of talks at COP31, including its Cover Decision. For decades now, we have been sounding the alarm: ice matters to the stability of our communities and our planet. It matters more today than ever.