At 20:00 on 17 December 2025 the programme “Les Informes”, broadcast by the French TV and radio station France Info, discussed among other things the effect of global warming on the world’s glaciers.

The video shows the relevant part of the programme.

Below the video we offer a full translation into English.

The speakers were:

• Sylvain Courage, Deputy Editor of Le Nouvel Obs
• Elizabeth Pineau, Senior Reporter for Reuters, Correspondent for the Prime Minister’s Office and the Élysée Palace
• Benjamin Luis, Swiss Journalist, Paris Correspondent for RTS
• Patricia Allémonière, Senior Reporter, Specialist in International Affairs
• With report vi video from Guillaume Fariol, environmental expert at France Info

The programme was chaired by Victor Matet. The French original can also be heard here.

More information about melting glaciers can be found here.

Victor Matet: Let’s head to the mountains. They’re in danger. A study published in the journal Nature predicts the disappearance of thousands of glaciers in the coming decades. Explanation from Guillaume Fariol, environmental expert at France Info.

Guillaume Fariol: Yes, the lead author of this study, a glaciologist in Switzerland, himself admits he is surprised by the sheer number of glaciers that will disappear. Specifically, the scientists analyzed the outlines of more than 210,000 glaciers worldwide and then subjected them to several climate models. With global warming of 1.5°C to 4°C, depending on the magnitude of this impending heatwave, which has already begun, 2,000 to 4,000 glaciers will disappear each year around 2050. If we look at the current scenario, the one we are heading towards—a planet 2.7 degrees warmer by the end of the century—3,000 glaciers will disappear each year between 2040 and 2060. By 2100, only one in five glaciers will have survived in the first affected region: the Alps. This peak in extinction could begin as early as 2035—that’s only 10 years away! Alpine glaciers are mostly quite small and therefore more fragile.

VM: What will the consequences be, Guillaume Fariol?

GF: The most obvious is the rise in sea levels. All this melting ice ends up in our oceans. The melting also weakens our mountains. Ice is like glue that holds rocks together. So there’s an increased risk of rockfalls and landslides. And then there are the foundations of some of our high-altitude buildings, built directly into these glaciers. You can imagine the dangers if the ice weakens.

VM: Thank you, Guillaume Fariole. Benjamin Louis, this time I’m sure you’ll have things to say. It brings us back to those very impressive images. We remember last spring when that glacier in Switzerland collapsed, alarming an entire village and even destroying a part of the city.

Benjamin Louis: Blatten, yes, yes. No, but there’s a huge problem with glaciers which is that Swiss glaciers lost 10% of their volume during the years 2022-2023. You wouldn’t think it, but it’s enormous. And glaciers are the water tower…of Europe, in particular. But let me give you a very concrete example.

There’s a glacier called the Rhône Glacier. Well, it’s aptly named because it’s the one that feeds the Rhône River. And the Rhône flows between Switzerland and France. This glacier is losing volume, which means there’s less water in the Rhône. And when there’s less water in the Rhône, what happens? Well, the French nuclear power plants, for example, which are downstream, are no longer being cooled properly.

So, that was precisely one of the major points of negotiation—cordial, let’s say, but sometimes tense, diplomatic—between Switzerland and France. It was about who gets to decide the water level of the Rhône. Because the Rhône starts in the Alps, but then it flows into Lake Geneva. And then in Geneva, there’s clearly the control point. In fact, there’s a dam, a small dam, in the center of Geneva, and we regulate the water level according to what we want to give the Rhône. And in short, if there’s less water, we have to open the gates a little.

So, is France saying that the gates absolutely have to be opened, or is it Switzerland?

Until now, it was Switzerland, and Geneva in particular, that decided this. But France, realizing that there’s less and less water in the Rhône and that the glacier is melting, felt it might be necessary to regain some control over the water supply. And so, a new agreement has been signed. All’s well that ends well. But the problem is, you can’t just invent water. If there’s less of it, if the glacier melts, there will be less and less water in the Rhône. And this problem is significant, especially because there are many others, particularly environmental ones, for biodiversity. But this issue of cooling the nuclear power plants, located notably in the Lyon region, will continue to arise every summer and even outside of the summer months.

VM: We see the enormous and direct consequences, Elisabeth Pinault, which are these climatic and ecological consequences, in particular. Is there an awareness of this today? We get the impression that there is, but that things aren’t changing as a result.

Elisabeth Pinault: After the oceans, the coral reefs, the summer heat, the winter storms, we can clearly see that now the glaciers are also affected. All the studies point in the same direction, and the trajectory set by the Paris Agreement was for 1.5°C by 2040: we’re at 2.7°C! And the most pessimistic scenario is 4°C bofore the end of the century. And of course, the planet we’re going to leave to our children will inevitably be transformed. And we can clearly see that the policies of the major powers aren’t heading in the right direction. There are undeniable efforts on the part of Europe, even on the part of China, which has made significant progress, for example, in wind and solar power, and even in electric cars for the French. Cities like Shanghai have many more electric cars.

But they are very poor performers when it comes to coal. For example, we’re experiencing record years of coal consumption, even though we know it’s very bad for global warming. All this tells us that glaciers, of course, will inevitably disappear. I think we’ll have to adapt; we can’t stop them from melting. But what we can try to do is slow down the process. We’ll have to adapt because, clearly, right now, all the warning lights are flashing red on every front.

VM: The melting of glaciers is perhaps not being addressed enough, Sylvain Courage, because there are too many economic stakes. We see, I don’t know, we can take the Winter Olympics, for example, which are coming up in two months. Is it nonsensical today to have major competitions?

Sylvain Courage: It’s symbolic because it will take place under glaciers. So, indeed, the question is raised. It’s a kind of staging of our contradictions. But we experience these contradictions every day. And we experience them intimately, we experience them on the scale of states, of companies. What greatly worries scientists about the melting of glaciers is the runaway scenario. That is to say, we could have thought that there would be a geometric progression of global warming. But in fact, there are runaways, there are feedback loops, meaning there are cumulative phenomena that cause things to accelerate. And so, that wasn’t necessarily what was initially envisioned in the IPCC’s first scenarios. It’s this runaway system that makes things even more complex because we wonder if we even have the means to control it, even if we make all the necessary efforts.

Patricia Allémonière: What needs to be said is that glaciers will now be replaced by beautiful green meadows on top of our mountains, eventually, quite quickly even. But what was the advantage of ice? Ice reflects sunlight. That is to say, it prevents warming. It’s like the Arctic. The Arctic is undergoing the same phenomenon as our glaciers. The Arctic is shrinking. The ice is melting in Russia, releasing the famous permafrost, which is this frozen ground, but when it thaws, like the tops of our mountains (because we also have permafrost in our mountains), what happens?

It releases the CO2 it contains. And this permafrost in our mountains and in Siberia, and even Greenland, etc., is a ticking time bomb. This cracked ground, frozen by the ice, will release tons of CO2. And then, hello warming. We’re going to experience global warming because we’re lacking sunlight and natural reflection. We’re experiencing warming due to this release of CO2. And as you so rightly pointed out, a whole system is spiraling out of control. The ocean waters are warming, which is causing disruptions to current circulation.

And it’s even being said that the Gulf Stream, the famous current that gives us such mild winters in Europe, could no longer be mild, but could become icy cold because it would reverse direction. So, instead of being warm, we’re going to be extremely cold. So, if you will, we’re completely unaware of it. And what infuriates me most—and I’ll end with this—is that everyone says, “We’ll adapt.” Oh yes, indeed, we’ll make artificial ice for skiing. But once people have finished their ski season, at the end of March, they’ll make the artificial ice again, and the grass will be green again. So we’re not adapting. What’s needed isn’t adaptation, it’s effective action. But the economic stakes are so high that while China has grasped them, we haven’t.

VM: And you mentioned, Patricia, the Arctic with the sweltering heat that is setting a record for heat this year. Benjamin Luis we have the feeling—we were perhaps saying this earlier, we were talking about the Alps, whether in Switzerland or France, and those glaciers, they resonate with us because they’re close to home. The Arctic, we have the impression that it’s very far away and that it doesn’t ultimately concern us.

BL: Yes, once again, it’s a question of… I’m aware of what I see every day, what I can touch. But it’s not even that true. It’s not really borne out. Because the issue of glaciers in Switzerland… I mean, at RTS, the number of glaciologists we’ve had on, glacier experts, experts in particular, I’m thinking of Martine Rebeté, whom we’re greeting tonight, who is one of the leading glacier experts, who has appeared dozens of times live on our TV and radio programs. And basically, it’s… we get the impression that it’s not resonating. We’ll really have to wait until the mountain has completely melted, really like in a cartoon where it’s nothing more than a small stone.

VM: Many impacts on public policy in Switzerland, for example.

BL: So yes, indeed, because there’s the climate law that was passed to reach net zero, the famous net zero by 2050. There’s a growing awareness among public authorities. But as always, we’re moving far too slowly with regulations because we can’t impose drastic societal changes overnight. But there’s still the problem, indeed, of realizing that even what we have right near us is disappearing; we don’t necessarily grasp the consequences until it happens. Another thing Patricia was saying earlier, she was talking about artificial ice, well, it’s more like artificial snow, artificial snow, which ties into the issue of the Olympic Games that are coming up soon.

It’s not as symbolic or anecdotal as all that, because precisely to reassure biodiversity, we’re forced to produce kilotons of artificial snow and we’re directly drying up rivers and mountain lakes. So, apparently, we create reservoirs, artificial reservoirs. But artificial snow—if there’s one climate absurdity today, it’s that, it’s artificial snow. And soon, we won’t be able to ski at all in Europe without making snow. And even that has a limited lifespan, a reduced window of opportunity, because it still needs to be cold to make fake snow. And even that fake snow, at some point, won’t last anymore. So, there won’t even be green grass underneath; there will be completely scorched grass.

VM: To get back to the Arctic, Patricia Allémonière, this will have diplomatic and geopolitical consequences as well. It will open new routes to the north, whether for trade, fishing, etc.

PA: So, besides the new trade routes, the world’s major powers—the Russians, the Chinese, and the Americans—are eyeing these newly liberated lands with great greed. Because beneath these lands, we’re thinking of Greenland in particular. We’re thinking of Greenland, we’re thinking of all of Siberia, we’re thinking of Northern Canada. On all these lands, Alaska, what’s there? There’s oil, gas, rare earth elements, copper, diamonds, etc. Incredible resources. So you can imagine that those around Donald Trump are rubbing their hands with glee. And those around Vladimir Putin, the famous advisor to Vladimir Putin, the one who negotiates all the contracts, Dimitrieff, is incredible. Shareholders of companies that will be working with these very resources. So you see, we’re at the point where geopolitics is at play.

BL: It’s the short term, once again, because what all the climate experts are telling you is that when it’s 57 degrees outside, you can have your rare earths, but you won’t be able to do much with them.

VM: Elisabeth Pinault or Sylvain Courage, a final word before we wrap up this briefing.

SC: Well, perhaps we need a note of hope. Maybe world leaders are listening to us? It’s true that there’s a reaction. We can at least say that since the Paris Agreement, there’s been a growing awareness. All opinion polls show that the world’s population is fairly well-informed and largely convinced of the existence of climate change. Well, there are a few notable exceptions, particularly at the head of the United States of America. But otherwise, the others are quite convinced of that. They are precisely despairing of the inaction. And what is currently making them very frustrated is this inaction. So, we know that awareness is needed first, and that perhaps the time for action will eventually come—let’s hope so.