Photo credit: Duncan Moore/UNEP
I don’t think I’ve ever walked up a big mountain and come down the same person. There’s something about the quiet, the effort, the height that gives you space to reflect.
In December, I climbed Mount Kenya for the first time. Near the top, I visited the Lewis Glacier, one of the last remaining in Africa, and I was shocked.
I've seen thousands of glaciers, but this one really did leave a lasting impact on me. It looked so small, so vulnerable. Scientists say it will be gone within three to five years.
When glaciers vanish, it’s not just the ice that goes. Glaciers feed our rivers. They water our crops. They cool our planet. Their impact is enormous. Their loss will be devastating.
Witnessing change
At the foot of Mount Kenya, I met a local elder who described how much the mountain had changed in his lifetime. When he was a boy, the peak was white with snow for many months each year. That began to change in the 1980s. Today, he said, the mountain is white for just a few weeks – if at all.
In the 1990s the rivers began to dry up. Now many of them no longer flow at all. Occasionally when it rains, water runs through the riverbeds for a short time, but it quickly dissipates.
To reach the Lewis Glacier we had to hike for four days. We started in thick forest, passing waterbuck, monkeys, and buffalo. Then we moved into the peatlands – soft, boggy ground that holds water and releases it slowly. Higher up, we came to the Afro-alpine zone; dry, windswept, and almost barren.
At 4,700 meters, we finally reached the glacier. What we saw was deeply unsettling: just a narrow sliver of ice, clinging to the mountainside. This glacier has been around for somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 years – and now it’s the size of two football fields.
In just a few more seasons, it will be gone forever.
Glaciers on the edge
Like many people, I thought the glaciers in East Africa had a few decades left. I was wrong. They are disappearing faster here than almost anywhere else on Earth.
These glaciers feed rivers that support millions of people. Without them, drinking water becomes harder to find, crops suffer, energy systems falter, and tensions escalate.
As UNEP Patron of the Oceans, I have witnessed ice changes in the Arctic, Antarctica, the Himalayas, the Alps, and in Greenland. Why would an ocean swimmer be visiting high mountains? Water that starts out as ice at the top of a mountain inevitably makes its way down to the ocean. From source to sea, everything is connected.
Photo credit: Duncan Moore/UNEP
Investing in resilience
This is why supporting climate adaptation is so important. The Global Environment Facility, the world’s largest multilateral fund for environmental action, has been investing for decades in mountains, forests, watersheds, and community projects that protect people’s lives and livelihoods – in the highlands as well as cities and coasts.
In Kenya, the GEF has helped restore degraded land, plant millions of trees, and improve access to clean water. They supported Africa’s first water fund, connecting the health of upstream farming areas with the needs of cities like Nairobi. Through their Small Grants Program, they’ve funded over 400 grassroots projects across the country.
Building a more resilient future amid changing conditions could not have higher global stakes. The prime importance of mountains and high-altitude ice will be front of mind in the GEF Assembly in Uzbekistan. As in Kenya, Uzbekistan’s glaciers are mainly small and rapidly shrinking, raising concerns about future water resources across Central Asia.
Every fraction of a degree of warming matters
After coming down the mountain, I travelled to Nairobi to speak at the UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7). Around 150 environment ministers and leaders were gathered to discuss how to protect nature and build a more resilient planet.
I spoke about the glaciers in the Alps, the Andes, the Himalayas – and about what I heard and saw on Mount Kenya. In the Himalayas alone, glacial meltwater sustains nearly two billion people. And it, too, is under threat, with serious consequences for water security across the region.
If the world heats by 1.5°C, scientists project we will lose nearly half of all glacial ice. At 2.7°C, we may lose three-quarters.
What we do next matters
Investment in forests, watersheds and resilient upstream communities is not abstract climate action. Protecting nature is a foundation for stability and fostering peace.
The Lewis Glacier is close to disappearing, and its loss will be felt far beyond Mount Kenya.
As we look towards 2026, and as the GEF prepares for its next funding cycle, the world has a chance to act decisively. The next four years are critical.
I’ll never forget the Lewis Glacier. Not because it shares my name but because it showed how fragile conditions have become. I saw a glacier in its final years. And I met the people who will feel its loss first.
Glaciers look remote. Their impact is not.
Remnants of the Lewis Glacier on Mount Kenya. Photo credit: Duncan Moore/UNEP
