Mount Kilimanjaro could lose all of its glaciers by 2015, Greenpeace warned delegates at the climate change negotiations in Morocco yesterday. In a video-link press conference, Greenpeace reps on the slopes of Africa’s highest mountain offered the delegates a stark reminder of the kinds of changes to expect if climate change is not controlled. At 19,341 feet, Tanzania’s Mount Kilimanjaro is one of the world’s most recognizable landmarks and one of the few snowy spots on the equator. But its familiar face is changing; 80 percent of its ice field has been lost since 1912, at least one-third of that in the last 12 years alone. A similar fate is befalling the Himalayas, the Andes, and mountains in Alaska. Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what the temperature’s like inside the Morocco negotiations, peek into the diaries of our Grist correspondents in Morocco, only on the Grist Magazine website.
