The melting glacier and the climate meetings

Sermeq Kujalleq - also called Ilulissat Glacier or Jakobshavn Isbræ - lies near the town Ilulissat in West Greenland. It is one of the largest and fastest-moving glaciers in the world. It ‘calves’ more ice than any other glacier outside Antarctica and produces approximately 10 per cent of all calve ice and icebergs from the Greenland Ice Sheet (Inland Ice). It drains approximately 6.5 per cent of the Greenland Ice Sheet, corresponding to 110,000 square kilometres.

Sermeq Kujalleq is melting and shrinking at great and increasing rates. It is by some - particularly laypersons - seen as one of the most visible and striking examples of climate change and has become a symbol of climate change and the pressing need to reduce its causes and alleviate its consequences.

The Danish Minister for Climate and Energy, Connie Hedegaard, and many other representatives of governments have recently visited Sermeq Kujalleq and Ilulissat to discuss climate change and possible actions to be taken to mitigate is causes and adapt to its impact.

These meetings and many other recent meetings between representatives of governments and international organisations have been held to prepare the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on 7 to 18 December 2009. The participants will be the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chance (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol to the convention. The conference is the 15th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (COP15) and the fifth session of the Conference of the Parties Serving as meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol (COP/MOP5).