The year 2025 was declared the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation (IYGP2025) by the United Nations General Assembly to ''"highlight the importance of glaciers and ensure that those relying on them...receive the necessary.. services"''. The declaration was made at a request the mountainous country of

Tajikistan Tajikistan, officially the Republic of Tajikistan, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Dushanbe is the capital city, capital and most populous city. Tajikistan borders Afghanistan to the Afghanistan–Tajikistan border, south, Uzbekistan to ...

made during 2022. Melting ice and glaciers threaten water security in many regions, including Tajikistan. Objectives of the declaration include: * Raising awareness of melting glaciers. * Advocating changes in policy and sustainable measures to preserve glaciers. This commemoration is co-facilitated by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

and the

World Meteorological Organization The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology an ...

. The official launch will occur on March 21, which is also now the World Day for Glaciers. The International Conference of Glaciers' Preservation took place from May 29th -- June 1st, 2025 in

Dushanbe Dushanbe is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Tajikistan. , Dushanbe had a population of 1,564,700, with this population being largely Tajiks, Tajik. Until 1929, the city was known in Russian as Dyushambe, and from 1929 to 1961 as St ...

, Tajikistan. The conference resulted in the Dushanbe Glacier Declaration that calls for: * a worldwide inventory of existing perennial ice and snow masses * promotion of integrated approaches for climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience * strengthened cooperation and partnerships among scientific institutions and relevant stakeholders about mountain cryosphere monitoring and research * promotion of availability of research results and findings to all stakeholders * increasing climate finance to support vulnerable mountain and downstream communities. There are more than 275,000 glaciers in the world, covering about 700,000 km², and storing about 170,000 km³ of ice. This adds up to about 70% of the global freshwater. Glaciers yield important information about ecosystem health and history because atmospheric gases are preserved within the layers of ice, offering a precise timeline of the history of Earth's atmosphere. The global sea-level rise of 20 cm from 1900 is partly a result of melting glaciers. {{Cite journal , last1=Frederikse , first1=Thomas , last2=Landerer , first2=Felix , last3=Caron , first3=Lambert , last4=Adhikari , first4=Surendra , last5=Parkes , first5=David , last6=Humphrey , first6=Vincent W. , last7=Dangendorf , first7=Sönke , last8=Hogarth , first8=Peter , last9=Zanna , first9=Laure , last10=Cheng , first10=Lijing , last11=Wu , first11=Yun-Hao , date=August 2020 , title=The causes of sea-level rise since 1900 , url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2591-3 , journal=Nature , language=en , volume=584 , issue=7821 , pages=393–397 , doi=10.1038/s41586-020-2591-3 , pmid=32814886 , issn=1476-4687, url-access=subscription , hdl=2078.1/232904 , hdl-access=free

References

United Nations observances 2025 in international relations 2025 in science 2025 in the United Nations Observances about science Glaciers