More than 1.000 glaciers have disappeared in Tajikistan in the last three decades, said the energy minister of this Central Asian country, Daler Juma.
"Over the past 30 years, out of 14.000 glaciers in Tajikistan, more than 1.000 glaciers vital to the entire region have disappeared," Juma said on the sidelines of COP29 in Azerbaijan.
He added that the rapid melting of glaciers due to climate change poses a serious threat to the protection of water resources in a global context, the Ministry of Energy in Dushanbe announced.
In Central Asia, an arid landlocked region, water resources are found in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which have between 10.000 and 15.000 glaciers.
Central Asia's glaciers could disappear completely by the end of the 21st century, leading to severe water shortages in a region of about 80 million people, the United Nations estimates.
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