BRUSSELS — Current plans to tackle global warming will only save 3 percent of Europe’s Alpine glaciers from disappearing this century, with most melting away within the next two decades, a new study has found.
The ice fields of Central Europe are vanishing faster than anywhere else on Earth, according to research led by Switzerland’s ETH Zurich. Overall, the scientists found that 79 percent of the world’s glaciers will not survive this century unless countries step up efforts to curb climate change.
“The Alps as we know them nowadays will completely change by the end of the century,” Lander Van Tricht, the study’s lead author, told POLITICO.
“The landscape will be completely different. Many ski resorts will not have access to glaciers anymore … the ones we keep are so high and so steep that they are not accessible anymore. So the economy will be confronted with these changes,” he said.
