The Ambition on Melting Ice (AMI) high-level group on Sea-level Rise and Mountain Water Resources was founded by 20 government ministers on November 16, 2022 at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. AMI aims to ensure that the irreversible and devastating global impacts of cryosphere loss are understood by political leaders and the public alike: not only within mountain and polar regions, but throughout the planet.
As stated in the founding Declaration, “protecting the cryosphere through vigorous climate action is not a matter for mountain and polar nations alone: it is a matter of urgent global concern, because the greatest impacts on human communities lie well outside these regions.”
Disappearance of one of the largest glaciers in Glacier National Park (Photo credit: L McKeon/ USGS)
Extreme flooding in Pakistan due to glacier melt (Umar Shah/ Shutterstock)
The cryosphere is a term for Earth’s frozen regions covered in snow or ice, either seasonally or throughout the year. Retreating glaciers, melting polar ice sheets on Antarctica and Greenland, thawing permafrost, disappearing sea ice and rapidly acidifying polar oceans all pose a devastating threat to communities on a global scale. The AMI high-level group underscores that only limiting global warming to 1.5°C through immediate emissions cuts can slow cryosphere loss in time, and limit the resulting widespread loss and damage that ultimately will affect every country on Earth.
Additional governments will be welcomed to sign the AMI Declaration in future, including during the 60th Sessions of the UNFCCC Subsidiary Bodies in June 2024 and at COP29.
Founding Governments
Chile (Co-chair), Iceland (Co-chair), Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Georgia, Kyrgyz Republic, Liberia, Mexico, Monaco, Nepal, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Samoa, Senegal, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, and Vanuatu.
Contact AMI at ami@iccinet.org