UN-Water Chair Message

After a decade of record-breaking heat, glaciers are melting faster than ever. These are the largest reservoirs of fresh water on Earth – and they are shrinking before our eyes.

In 2023 alone, glaciers lost more than 600 gigatons of water. That’s 240 million Olympic swimming pools – the largest loss registered in half a century.

The speed and scale of glacial retreat is already making the water cycle more unpredictable and extreme, devastating communities and ecosystems.

Changes in meltwater flows are causing floods, droughts, landslides and sea-level rise.

Our water and sanitation systems, food and energy production, and the integrity of our ecosystems are at risk around the world.

World Water Day 2025, under the theme ‘Glacier Preservation’, is celebrated alongside the inaugural World Day for Glaciers.

It also marks the beginning of the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025 and the Decade of Action for Cryospheric Sciences, which will rally global efforts to protect our glaciers, ice sheets, and permafrost for the future.

We must slash carbon emissions to save what is left of the cryosphere. And we must support communities to adapt to new and changing climatic conditions.

The United Nations System-wide Strategy on Water and Sanitation reinforces our commitment to, and provides a roadmap for, sustainable water management and coordinated global action in the face of these challenges.

The disappearing glacier has become a defining image of climate change – and a warning of the future we must avoid.

Saving our glaciers is a survival strategy for people and the planet – one we must pursue together without delay.

UN-Water Chair, Álvaro Lario

WMO Secretary-General Message

Glaciers are precious water sources, sustaining livelihoods of billions of people and supporting key sectors such as agriculture, industry, and clean energy. Yet, they are disappearing at an alarming rate due to climate change.

In 2023, glaciers lost over 600 gigatons of water, marking the highest mass loss recorded in the past five decades of record-keeping. For the second consecutive year, all glaciated regions in the world reported ice loss.

Glaciers play a crucial role in the global water cycle, regulating seasonal water availability. If temperatures continue to rise, their hydrological contribution will diminish, leading to significant disruptions in water supplies. By the end of the century, glacier runoff is projected to decline substantially, threatening ecosystems, economies, and our collective future.

Every fraction of a degree of warming therefore matters. Urgent action is needed to slow glacier loss and mitigate the far-reaching consequences of climate change.

This year’s World Water Day aligns with the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation 2025, co-coordinated by WMO and UNESCO. This initiative aims to raise global awareness of glaciers' vital role, promote concrete action, enhance scientific research, and strengthen policy frameworks and financial support for glacier preservation.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has elevated the cryosphere—glaciers, snow, ice sheets, permafrost, and sea ice— to one of its top priorities, advocating for stronger international collaboration in monitoring and understanding changes in snow and ice in all forms.

Programs such as the Global Cryosphere Watch and the WMO Integrated Processing and Prediction System are crucial in providing the data and information necessary for effective climate action. Good decisions and effective policies need to be evidence based, and WMO is working with Members and partners to enhance monitoring, data exchange, and cooperation.

Strengthening these areas will enable better water resource management and early warning systems for glacier-related hazards, helping communities adapt to changing water availability and increasing climate risks.

Preserving glaciers requires stabilizing the climate and this is not just an environmental issue—it is a survival strategy.

WMO Secretary-General, Celeste Saulo

ILO Director-General Message

Glacier preservation is central to economic growth, employment and decent work for billions of people. Glacial retreat, and the floods and sea level rise that it can cause, are a threat to the livelihoods of all who depend on agriculture, fishing, forestry and tourism.

Glaciers world over are shrinking. In Central Europe, North and South America, Central Asia and New Zealand glaciers are retreating, with possibly devastating consequences for the people that depend on them for water. In Africa, the iconic Mount Kilimanjaro is losing its ice field. Globally, glaciers and ice caps, excluding the large polar ice sheets, are projected to lose about 60 per cent of their mass if we don’t mitigate climate change.

It does not have to be this way. We can reverse the trend of glacier loss through climate action and a just transition to sustainable economies and societies. By reducing greenhouse gas emissions and managing meltwater more sustainably, we can stop glacier melt while also creating new jobs in environmentally-friendly industries and services. Through social dialogue, governments, employers’ and workers’ organizations can also contribute to this transition.

On this year’s World Water Day, I urge countries to support our efforts to save the glaciers. Our planet depends on it.

ILO Director-General, Gilbert F. Houngbo

UN-Habitat Executive Director Message

Water is life. Yet, for 2.2 billion people, clean and reliable water services remain out of reach. This is especially severe in informal settlements and slums, where 1.1 billion live today in the context of a global housing crisis that affects 2.8 billion people.

UN-Habitat recognizes that access to water is a global urban challenge. We work with governments, regions, utility providers and communities across the world to strengthen policies, expand access to water and build long-term resilience in urban contexts.

We support Member States to ensure that every household has access to water and sanitation. I thank Member States and global and regional partners like Germany, the Netherlands, the European Union, and the Gates Foundation, who support this critical work.

This World Water Day focuses on the need to protect one of the critical sources of freshwater that sustain our planet: glaciers.

Rapid unplanned urbanization – as well as climate change – threatens our ecosystems and affects water availability, quality, and security. If glaciers disappear, we will face more droughts and struggle to provide water to communities.

If we are to secure our shared urban future, we must act to safeguard the water sources that sustain it.

It is our common responsibility to prioritize glacier preservation by advancing sustainable urban planning and land use, investing in resilient infrastructure and nature-based solutions, strengthening water utilities, and promoting community participation.

Through our Global Water Operators’ Partnership Alliance and multilevel climate programmes, such as Water as Leverage, we are working to turn these priorities into action.

UN-Habitat has partnered with UN-Water on this year’s United Nations World Water Development Report to highlight the importance of mountain waters for our societies, economies and environment.

Water unites us all. By protecting our glaciers today and managing water wisely, we ensure a more sustainable tomorrow.

Let us create a world where every person across all cities and human settlements has access to water for life.

Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Anacláudia Rossbach

UNU Rector and Under-Secretary-General Message

As we celebrate World Water Day 2025, glacier preservation could not be a more salient call to action. We are quite literally walking on thin ice in our fight against climate change. Rapidly shrinking glaciers point directly to the increasing consequences of inadequate action.

Glaciers and ice sheets hold 70% of the Earth’s fresh water, while providing vital balance in our planetary systems and essential support for life and livelihoods throughout the world. By turning attention to glacier preservation, our collaborative climate action can meet at a powerful intersection of historical, ecological, geologic and human-centred solutions, addressing the needs of the local communities and the Indigenous Peoples protecting our glaciers.

For five decades, the United Nations University (UNU) has produced insights on the integral role of water in achieving sustainable development. In the past few years, however, UNU research has sounded the alarm on the rapid retreat of glaciers and the resulting risks for people and planet.

During this International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, UNU is expanding its focus on the profound role glaciers play in monitoring, stabilizing and sustaining our world. Working closely with other UN agencies, community and regional organizations, and governments such as Canada and Tajikistan, UNU is building partnerships that put glaciers at the forefront of water research and climate change action.

On this World Water Day, let us highlight glacier preservation as both an urgent commitment to achieve water-related Sustainable Development Goals, and a reminder that to overcome interconnected global challenges we need interconnected evidence-based solutions.

UNU Rector and Under-Secretary-General, Tshilidzi Marwala

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Message

The Asia-Pacific region has some of the world’s highest mountains and most extensive glacier systems. It is home to the “Third Pole” - the “water tower of Asia” – which stores more ice and snow than any other region outside the North and South Poles and is the origin of over ten major river systems that are vital for sustaining the lives and livelihoods of nearly 2 billion people.

Yet, the region is among the most vulnerable to ongoing climatic, societal and environmental changes. Its glaciers are rapidly retreating, faster than the global average. Projections indicate that 80 per cent of the current glacial volume in the Hindu-Kush Himalayas will be lost by the end of the century.

The accelerated melting of glaciers has severe consequences, contributing to increasing glacial-lake outburst floods (GLOFs), flash floods and landslides and elevated damage to human settlements, farm and pasture production, transportation networks and hydropower energy systems.

In the long term, it will jeopardize food, water, energy and livelihood security , as well as disrupt ecosystems and escalate risk of conflicts and migration. The most vulnerable and marginalized populations are often at the highest risk, including mountain farming and indigenous communities.

Such challenges cannot be addressed by any one country alone. With High Mountain Asia being home to 44 per cent of the world’s glaciers outside of the Arctic ice sheets , the region has a crucial role to play in preserving them.

Enhanced regional and multistakeholder cooperation for engaging the diversity of stakeholders and sectors that these trends will impact is necessary.

Glacial melt and water related crises must be met by strengthened adaptation measures, integrated water resource management, as well as synergistic solutions for climate, nature and pollution, supported by collaboration across shared river basins, data sharing and regional dialogue, advocacy and awareness raising.

ESCAP, as a knowledge hub and a platform for regional cooperation, is committed to supporting its member States in these endeavours and fostering collaboration among governments, scientists and stakeholders, including through the Third Pole Regional Climate Centre Network (TPRCC-Network).

For World Water Day 2025, set against the backdrop of the International Year of Glaciers' Preservation, let us renew our commitment to action.

By prioritizing glacier preservation and sustainable water resources management, we can – and must - secure a future where water systems continue to support life and development for current and future generations.

Thank you.

Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of ESCAP, Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Message

Friends,

Water is life. Glaciers are its reservoirs, holding the freshwater that sustains nearly 2 billion people.

As our planet heats, these reservoirs are vanishing at an alarming rate.

Floods, droughts, landslides, and avalanches are becoming more frequent and severe, destroying homes, land, crops, and ecosystems.

Rising sea levels are increasingly threatening Small Island Developing countries.

The most vulnerable are suffering first and worst - especially those living in poverty, rural communities, Indigenous Peoples, older people, those with disabilities, and migrants and refugees.

As water sources vanish, women and girls face greater risks. Walking longer distances for water exposes them to exploitation, violence, and health hazards.

Those who have contributed the least to global emissions must not bear the greatest burden.

On World Water Day, we must recognise the glacier crisis for what it is: a human rights crisis.

Human rights can and must guide our actions.

Governments have the primary duty: to protect these vital water sources and manage meltwater sustainably. They must also eliminate discrimination and inequalities in access to water.

Companies also have a key role: by reducing the harmful activities which are contributing to the climate emergency, and by finding new ways to protect our planet and our environment.

In the face of water scarcity, personal and domestic use must take priority over industry or large-scale agriculture.

Marginalised communities and environmental human rights defenders must be able to meaningfully participate in climate solutions and water governance.

The melting of glaciers is a stark warning: the climate emergency is here. It is now. And we must act.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk

Director General International Atomic Energy Agency Message

Glaciers play a critical role in regulating global water resources. They act as natural reservoirs, storing and releasing freshwater gradually, sustaining ecosystems, agriculture, and human livelihoods. The accelerating retreat of glaciers and the loss of the cryosphere are disrupting established water cycles, with profound consequences for freshwater availability, biodiversity, food security and economic development.

In response, the IAEA has intensified its efforts to understand and mitigate these impacts with innovative nuclear-based science. Cutting-edge approaches provide unparalleled insights into glacier dynamics, permafrost degradation, and the reduction of mountain snow cover. By leveraging isotopic and nuclear techniques, we are helping countries worldwide to track glacier meltwater, analysing its role in replenishing groundwater systems, mapping its journey into rivers, and evaluating its contribution to rising sea levels.

The IAEA is strengthening global analytical capacities and expanding monitoring networks to support evidence-based decision-making. Through collaboration with other UN Agencies, international organizations and Member States, we are committed to delivering the scientific foundation needed to address glacier retreat and protect the remaining cryosphere.

The urgency of this issue cannot be overstated. Rapid global changes demand immediate action. By sharing knowledge, fostering innovation, and building partnerships, the IAEA empowers nations to make informed decisions that safeguard our water resources for future generations. Together, we can turn scientific insights into actionable solutions, ensuring a sustainable and resilient future for all.

Director General International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi

UNSG's Special Envoy on Water Message

Water is the bloodline of humanity and glaciers are the icebound heart of the Earth.

World Water Day 2025 – an Opportunity for Collective Actions!

For over three decades, World Water Day has been more than just a day of commemoration. Each year, it serves as a pivotal opportunity for reflection and evaluation that leads us to a renewed collective commitment for the world’s water.

The challenges facing our water are becoming ever more complex – too little, too much, or too polluted. With limited time, we must intensify and scale up tangible efforts to ensure lasting solutions. Collaboration is key – to building resilience and sustaining water as the source of our lives. Because there is no life without water.

World Water Day 2025: Glaciers Preservation

The theme of this year’s World Water Day provides a unique opportunity. It encourages us to reflect on the current situation of the world’s glaciers. As the Earth’s frozen reservoirs, glaciers sustain the lives of nearly 2 billion people. Through glaciers and their meltwater, a quarter of the world’s population obtains drinking water, ensure food production, and generate clean energy.

Unfortunately, records show a rapid melting of the world’s glaciers. 2023 marked the largest mass loss of glaciers in the last 50 years. This threatens water supply and poses a risk of disasters to those who depend on glaciers for living. Furthermore, it contributes to sea level rise, impacting billions world-wide.

We must act now to preserve our glaciers. Commitments to action must be strengthened to preserve the world’s glaciers. Tackling climate change is among the key priorities we must address. By preserving glaciers, we are preserving our water and our future.

Let us use this World Water Day as a moment of renewed commitment and actions for our water, for our glaciers, for our people, and for our planet! Happy World Water Day 2025.

UNSG's Special Envoy on Water, Retno Marsudi

Convention on Biological Diversity Message

When we think of water, images of its liquid form spring to mind. But 70 per cent of Earth’s freshwater exists as snow or ice. Glaciers, which are celebrated this year on World Water Day, inspire awe and need protection. These colossal yet mobile masses and their meltwater create unique habitats for various species of plants, animals and microorganisms.

As climate change accelerates habitat loss in high-altitude mountains, it is estimated that the world loses 335 billion tonnes of ice per year to global heating and ocean warming. The influx of freshwater from melting glaciers can alter the salinity of nearby marine ecosystems, potentially impacting the distribution and survival of marine species.

The retreat of glaciers also threatens what biologists call “specialist species”— organisms that adapted to live in this environment. Many species are already being driven to the brink of extinction. In Europe’s subalpine zone, researchers have observed how plant communities rapidly disappear when woody vegetation encroaches.

The silent retreat of glaciers has dire consequences for people, too. Its consequences include shortages in drinking water and irrigation, disruptions to hydropower generation and loss of cultural and traditional resources for local communities. Monitoring systems and collaborative knowledge management among affected countries must be enhanced to ensure that the loss of glaciers is adequately addressed.

At the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, thematic programmes promote conservation and the mitigation of the effects of melting glaciers on biodiversity: “biodiversity and climate change”; “marine and coastal biodiversity”; “inland waters biodiversity” and “mountain biodiversity”. These programmes also support the implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), the world’s masterplan to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

The KMGBF underpins the achievement of several Sustainable Development Goals pertaining to or connected to water, including SDG-6 (ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all). By aiming at improvements in water-related ecosystem health in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, the KMGBF has linkages with SDGs 14 and 15.

Like the SDGs, the 23 action targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework must be achieved by 2030. Like glaciers, the time agreed for their implementation is melting away. A global surge of implementation, guided by National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans, is urgently needed.

Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Astrid Schomaker

Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Message

It is a profound honour to address you on this landmark occasion -- the inaugural World Day for Glaciers, in conjunction with World Water Day. This dual observance underscores the critical nexus between glacial health and global water security.

I extend my deep appreciation to the Governments of Barbados, Canada, Peru, Senegal, Singapore, Switzerland, Tajikistan, and the United Arab Emirates for their leadership in convening this timely event.

2025 marks the International Year of Glaciers’ Preservation. This presents us a unique opportunity to elevate global awareness and drive concrete actions to safeguard these critical natural resources.

I commend Tajikistan for their proactive role in hosting the 2025 International Conference on Glaciers’ Preservation, a pivotal moment for international collaboration.

The cryosphere -- encompassing glaciers, ice sheets, permafrost, and snow -- is the lifeblood of our planet’s ecosystems.

Glaciers, in particular, hold approximately 70 per cent of the Earth’s freshwater, acting as critical reservoirs that sustain millions, especially in arid and mountainous regions. However, climate change is causing these essential ice reserves to vanish at an alarming rate.

Glacier retreat is not just an environmental concern—it is a global crisis with profound impact on water security, biodiversity, and human livelihoods.

The accelerating melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is now the dominant contributor to rising sea levels, posing an existential threat to the 680 million people residing in vulnerable low-lying coastal zones, including Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

The increased glacial melt also intensifies extreme weather events, disrupting economies and displacing communities. These interconnected challenges demand immediate and concerted action.

Glacier preservation is intrinsically linked to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Protecting glaciers directly supports SDG 6, Clean Water and Sanitation, by ensuring the sustainability of freshwater resources. It is also fundamental to SDG 13, Climate Action, as preserving glaciers helps mitigate climate change impacts and build resilience among vulnerable communities. Furthermore, safeguarding glaciers contributes to food security (SDG 2), disaster risk reduction (SDG 11) and biodiversity conservation (SDG 15).

First, we must enhance scientific research and capacity building. Strengthening global monitoring systems and expanding data collection on glacier dynamics will improve our ability to predict and mitigate climate-related risks. Providing targeted technical assistance and training to developing countries is crucial.

Second, we must strengthen international collaboration. Glaciers transcend political boundaries, making cross-border collaboration essential. We must foster robust partnerships between governments, academia, private sector and civil society to develop and implement preservation strategies. The UN system can play a pivotal role in developing a unified strategy and action plan for glacier preservation.

Third, we must develop and implement comprehensive adaptation and mitigation strategies. Countries must integrate glacier preservation into national policies, with a focus on sustainable water management, ecosystem protection, and community resilience.

As we prepare for the 2026 Water Conference, let us build on the momentum gained at the 2023 UN Water Conference, and ensure our actions deliver lasting impact.

The preservation of glaciers is not merely an environmental necessity—it is a moral and developmental imperative that demands our collective commitment.

Let us act decisively now to protect glaciers, secure water resources, and accelerate progress towards a sustainable future for all.

Thank you.

Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Li Junhua