Having spent much of my life scaling the high mountains of the Himalayas, I have seen this loss unfold firsthand. But translating that visceral experience into urgency for someone living in a coastal metropolis like Hong Kong or Mumbai can be challenging. From afar, glacier loss can seem distant; a tragic but abstract crisis.
Yet at the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), where I lead a group of scientists and researchers, a central part of our mission is to bridge this gap: to illuminate how glacier retreat in the world’s highest mountains is entangled with the future of energy systems, water security, disaster risk and the lives and livelihoods of people far beyond these peaks.
