The International Year for Glaciers’ Preservation: A Strategic Opportunity for India

In December 2022, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution designating the year 2025 as the International Year for Glaciers’ Preservation. It also dedicated the decade starting 2025 to the protection of the global cryosphere. What does this global attestation of glaciers and the cryosphere – a landscape historically overlooked – mean for India’s strategic and ecological interests vis-à-vis both global and Himalayan cryosphere?

In light of the resolution, India must revisit its strategic engagements as well as scientific collaborations across both the Himalayan neighbourhood and the two polar regions – the Arctic and Antarctic. Additionally, as a responsible stakeholder in the Hindu Kush Himalaya, India must also review the scope and applicability of its national environmental policies, particularly as it pertains to glaciated ecosystems.

Glacier Governance

A glacier is a ‘multi-year accumulation of snowfall in excess of snowmelt on land, resulting in a mass of ice (at least 0.1 km² in area), that exhibits some evidence of movement in response to gravity’. There are approximately 54,000 glaciers in the entire Hindu Kush Himalaya with a total of estimated 9,040 within Indian territory. The total volume of water locked up in these glaciers is 1,306.1 km³ of ice (1,110 km³ of water) – approximately 29 times the annual discharge of the Ganga River. These glaciers are conduits that collect snow and ice from surrounding mountain slopes, which eventually accumulate in layers, giving them dynamic properties. At its snout, a glacier melts and the melt run-off, through surface or sub-surface channels, feeds lakes, wetlands, springs and rivers.

Historically, glaciers have remained outside the scope of environmental governance as they were not considered salient ecosystems, unlike rivers, forests, lakes, or even deserts. Things changed in 2007 with the release of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fourth Assessment Report. For the very first time, the Report included a chapter on Himalayan Glaciers where it published scientific and technical information on this matter. In particular, it mentioned that “[g]laciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high.” These estimations immediately created a furore and sparked a heated debate on the melting glaciers among scientists across the world. Since then, Himalayan cryosphere has remained under scientific scrutiny.

Shifting Global Cryosphere Cooperation

The International Year for Glacier’ Preservation (IYGP), initiated by President of the Republic of Tajikistan, His Excellency Mr. Emomali Rahmon, represents a culmination of research efforts and advocacy conducted over almost two decades. It represents acknowledgement of a significant threat perceived by a country linked to Asia’s Third Pole––a transnational ecological landscape with frozen water reserves that sustains life across the region and beyond.

The IYGP connects the Himalaya to other cryosphere regions, such as the Andes in South America. At the normative level, it aims to foster cooperation between the cryosphere nation-states––a group of countries who inhabit frozen landforms––especially amongst the Global South, and to bridge the gap between these regions and the two poles that traditionally receive greater attention. At the institutional level, it is expected to establish structures for mobilising financial, technological, knowledge and human resources from the Global North to improve international cryosphere cooperation. Finally, at the policy level, it intends to strengthen legal and policy mandates towards preservation of glaciers.

Opportunity for Legal Reforms

This is a significant time to raise certain fundamental questions on glaciers from legal and policy points of view. Are India’s existing legal structures adequately equipped to mandate the preservation of glaciers or is there a need for specialised legislation that establishes a dedicated institutional mechanism for governing the cryosphere?

In India, the government derives its authority to protect the environment from the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. According to a prominent Indian legal expert, as per the current provisions of this Act, “Glaciers can be viewed as a landform where they fall under the state jurisdiction and an ecological system where they are to be managed at a national level.”  He further adds that, “There is no legal definition of glaciers one will find in national or state legislations, nor in any by-laws.” As a result, the current state of governance of cryosphere in India remains marked by a lack of legal specificity, dedicated institutional focus, and policy frameworks.

Going ahead, issuing an executive order or a notification that defines glaciers, delineates permitted and prohibited human activities on glaciated spaces, directs community-based local adaptation measures in response to the impacts of glacier melt, and establishes specific mandates and dedicated organisations, would constitute a progressive legal step. Given that environmental law in India has historically evolved in response to global calls for action, the IYGP offers a critical stimulus for driving legal innovation in national frameworks for streamlining and strengthening response to the melting and degradation of the cryosphere.

Since financing climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts particularly in developing countries entails significant costs, securing these resources for building resilience in the Himalaya remains a crucial task. India must leverage the global public goods of cryosphere management emerging as part of the IYGP.

Geopolitical Challenges

With changing geopolitical realities – increasing rivalries between major global powers, particularly the United States, China, and Russia, and rising demand for carbon and critical minerals – the polar regions, once primarily domains of environmental and scientific cooperation, are now facing pressures from carbon extraction, militarisation, and infrastructure development. This has led to a gradual securitisation of the cryosphere science and climate change itself.

In this context, the IYGP serves a timely countermeasure to the rising geopolitical competition. It represents a call to reinforce multilateral, rules-based governance in the cryosphere and the equitable distribution of its natural benefits amongst nations (including the Global South), and promote environmental stewardship in these fragile ecosystems. As India seeks to assert its stake in the two poles, while simultaneously managing a volatile Himalayan frontier, it must recalibrate its strategic and ecological outlook for a secure and demilitarised cryosphere. In conclusion, the potential for India’s engagement with the IYGP extends beyond the need to protect its glaciers – it is an opportunity to contribute to the stability of the entire global cryosphere.

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 About the Author: Aishwarya Sanas is a PhD scholar at the Department of International Relations and Governance Studies, Shiv Nadar IoE. Her thesis looks at the politics of climate as evident in glaciological knowledge production in the Hindu Kush Himalaya. She uses a critical political ecology framework to analyse the Himalayan cryosphere, the evolution of cryosphere sciences, and scientific diplomacy in the frozen terrains of the world. She can be contacted at [email protected], X: @Aishwarya_721