Near a wooden hut high up in the Kyrgyz mountains, scientist Gulbara Omorova walked to a pile of grey rocks, reminiscing how the same spot was a glacier just a few years ago.
At an altitude of 4,000 meters, the 35-year-old researcher is surrounded by the giant peaks of the towering Tian Shan range that also stretches into China, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
The area is home to thousands of glaciers that are melting at an alarming rate in Central Asia, already hard-hit by climate change.
A glaciologist, Omarova is recording that process — worried about the future.
She hiked six hours to get to the modest triangular-shaped hut that serves as a science station — almost up in the clouds.
“Eight to 10 years ago you could see the glacier with snow,” Omorova told AFP.
“But in the last three-to-four years, it has disappeared completely. There is no snow, no glacier,” she said.
The effects of a warming planet have been particularly visible in Central Asia, which has seen a wave of extreme weather disasters.
The melting of thousands of glaciers is a major threat to people in the landlocked region that already suffers from a shortage of water.
Acting as water towers, glaciers are crucial to the region’s food security and vital freshwater reserves are now dwindling fast.
Equipped with a measuring device, Omorova kneeled over a torrent of melted water, standing on grey-covered ice shimmering in strong sunshine.
“We are measuring everything,” she said. “The glaciers cannot regenerate because of rising temperatures.”
A little further on, she points to the shrinking Adygene glacier, saying it has retreated by “around 16 centimeters (six inches)” every year.
“That’s more than 900 meters since the 1960s,” she said.
The once majestic glacier is only one of thousands in the area that are slowly disappearing.
Between 14 and 30 percent of glaciers in the Tian-Shan and Pamir — the two main mountain ranges in Central Asia — have melted over the last 60 years, according to a report by the Eurasian Development Bank.
Omorova warned that things are only becoming worse.
“The melting is much more intense than in previous years,” she said.
With scientists warning that 2024 is likely to be the hottest year on record, professions like hers have hugely grown in importance.
But resources are scarce in Kyrgyzstan — one of the poorest countries in former Soviet Central Asia.
“We lack measuring equipment and there is not enough money to transport things to our observation station, where we don’t even have electricity,” Omorova said.
She hopes the Kyrygz government will draw up a law to protect the ice-covered giants.
The shrinking glaciers have also created a new threat for Kyrgyz towns and cities, with meltwater forming new lakes before tumbling down mountains in dangerous torrents, including toward the capital Bishkek.
Further down the valley — in a grass-covered part of the mountain at 2,200 meters — two scientists, brothers Sergei and Pavel Yerokhin, worked on the banks of the fast-flowing water.
The elder brother, 72-year-old Sergei, warned of the dangers of the torrents.
“This water mass takes rocks with it, flows down the valley and can reach towns,” he told AFP.
He said their task was to monitor and predict the water flow and to “draw up maps to ensure people and infrastructure don’t end up in these dangerous areas.”
His brother Pavel had a sensor installed about 50 centimeters above the water that would send radio signals in case of flooding.
For the Kyrgyz government, the melting glaciers threaten more than infrastructure damage.
Water distribution in the region — devised in the Soviet era — remains a thorny issue and is a frequent source of tension between neighbors.
Mountainous Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — home to around 10,000 glaciers each, according to Omorova — are the main water providers for Central Asia.
“We share water with our neighbors downstream,” Omorova said, referring to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, home to most of Central Asia’s population.
Aside from rising temperatures, the glaciers also face another threat: a growing appetite for immense natural resources in the region, including for gold, whose extraction with chemicals accelerates the melting of ice.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have stepped up efforts to draw attention to a looming catastrophe.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov warned last year that forecasts show Central Asian glaciers “will halve by 2050 and disappear completely by 2100.”
’Disappeared completely’: melting glaciers worry Central Asia
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’Disappeared completely’: melting glaciers worry Central Asia
EU leaders work into the night to ease Belgian fears of Russian retaliation over a loan to Ukraine
BRUSSELS: European Union leaders worked into the night on Thursday, seeking to reassure Belgium that they would provide guarantees to protect it from Russian retaliation if it backs a massive loan for Ukraine. Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky meanwhile pleaded for a quick decision to keep Ukraine afloat in the new year.
At a summit in Brussels with high stakes for both the EU and Ukraine, leaders of the 27-nation bloc discussed how best to use tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets to underwrite a loan to meet Ukraine’s military and financial needs over the next two years.
The bulk of the assets — some 193 billion euros as of September — are held in the Brussels-based financial clearing house Euroclear. Russia’s Central Bank launched a lawsuit against Euroclear last week.
“Give me a parachute and we’ll all jump together,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever told lawmakers ahead of the summit. “If we have confidence in the parachute that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Belgian concerns over Russian pressure
Belgium fears that Russia will strike back and wants the bloc to borrow the money on international markets. It says frozen assets held in other European countries should be thrown into the pot as well, and that its partners should guarantee that Euroclear will have the funds it needs should it come under legal attack.
An estimated 25 billion euros in Russian assets are frozen in banks and financial institutions in other EU countries, including France, Germany and Luxembourg.
The Russian Central Bank’s lawsuit ramped up pressure on Belgium and its EU partners ahead of the summit.
The “reparations loan” plan would see the EU lend 90 billion euros to Ukraine. Countries like the United Kingdom, which said Thursday it is prepared to share the risk, as well as Canada and Norway would help make up any shortfall.
Russia’s claim to the assets would still stand, but the assets would remain locked away at least until the Kremlin ends its war on Ukraine and pays for the massive damage it caused.
In mapping out the loan plan, the European Commission set up safeguards to protect Belgium, but De Wever remained unconvinced and EU envoys were working late on Thursday to address his concerns.
Zelensky describes it as a moral question
Soon after arriving in Brussels, the Ukrainian president sat down with the Belgian prime minister to make his case for freeing up the frozen funds. The war-ravaged country is at risk of bankruptcy and needs new money by spring.
“Ukraine has the right to this money because Russia is destroying us, and to use these assets against these attacks is absolutely just,” Zelensky told a news conference.
In an appeal to Belgian citizens who share their leader’s worries about retaliation, Zelensky said: “One can fear certain legal steps in courts from the Russian Federation, but it’s not as scary as when Russia is at your borders.”
“So while Ukraine is defending Europe, you must help Ukraine,” he said.
Allies maintain support for Ukraine
Whatever method they use, the leaders have pledged to meet most of Ukraine’s needs in 2026 and 2027. The International Monetary Fund estimates that would amount to 137 billion euros .
“We have to find a solution today,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told reporters. EU Council President António Costa, who is chairing the meeting, vowed to keep leaders negotiating until an agreement is reached, even if it takes days.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said it was a case of sending “either money today or blood tomorrow” to help Ukraine.
If enough countries object, the plan could be blocked. There is no majority support for a plan B of raising the funds on international markets, although that too was being discussed at the summit.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that he hopes Belgium’s concerns can be addressed.
“The reactions of the Russian president in recent hours show how necessary this is. In my view, this is indeed the only option. We are basically faced with the choice of using European debt or Russian assets for Ukraine, and my opinion is clear: We must use the Russian assets.”
Hungary and Slovakia oppose a reparations loan. Apart from Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy and Malta are also undecided.
“I would not like a European Union in war,” said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who sees himself as a peacemaker. He’s also Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest ally in Europe. “To give money means war.”
Orbán described the loan plan as a “dead end.”
High stakes for the EU
The outcome of the summit has significant ramifications for Europe’s place in negotiations to end the war. The United States wants assurances that the Europeans are intent on supporting Ukraine financially and backing it militarily — even as negotiations to end the war drag on without substantial results.
The loan plan in particular also poses important challenges to the way the bloc goes about its business. Should a two-thirds majority of EU leaders decide to impose the scheme on Belgium, which has most to lose, the impact on decision-making in Europe would be profound.
The EU depends on consensus, and finding voting majorities and avoiding vetoes in the future could become infinitely more complex if one of the EU’s founding members is forced to weather an attack on its interests by its very own partners.
De Wever too must weigh whether the cost of holding out against a majority is worth the hit his government’s credibility would take in Europe.
Whatever is decided, the process does not end at this summit. Legal experts would have to convert any political deal into a workable agreement, and some national parliaments may have to weigh in before the loan money could start flowing to Ukraine.
