The Andean Glaciers Are Melting,
and 90 Million People's Water Is at Risk

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The State of the Climate in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in May 2026, warns that record heat, floods, and drought are striking the region at the same time. Mexico saw a site record a temperature of 52.7C, while glaciers in the tropical Andes recorded a negative mass balance averaging -0.97 metres water equivalent per year over the 1990-2020 monitoring period and have lost more than 30% of their area since the 1980s. These glaciers sustain the drinking water, irrigation, and hydropower of at least 90 million people, and the data points to a dangerous, perhaps irreversible, threshold.

What Happened

The WMO report documents how several climate extremes hit Latin America and the Caribbean at once in 2025. Glacial retreat, record heat, widespread drought, and localized flooding were all observed in the same year.

The Andean glaciers draw particular attention. Tropical glaciers in the region are melting roughly ten times faster than the cumulative global average, and the Andes as a whole have lost 25% of their ice coverage since the end of the nineteenth century. Research indicates Bolivia has lost around 40% of its glaciers since the mid-1980s, and severe water shortages have previously prompted an emergency declaration there (November 2016, with rationing in La Paz and El Alto). The shrinking of the glaciers is not a one-off event but a long-term trend that continues to be recorded. The WMO frames the report as a call to action, urging countries to strengthen observations, invest in climate services, close early warning gaps, and ensure climate information reaches those who need it most.

Background

The Andes, stretching across Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and Argentina, hold the glaciers that sustain the water cycle of the South American continent. Their crucial role is to maintain river flow during the dry season, when there is little rainfall. Water stored in the glaciers melts slowly when no rain falls, filling the rivers and supporting people's lives.

Chile's capital, Santiago (with a metropolitan population of roughly 7 to 8 million), depends on these glaciers for much of its dry-season water supply. The shrinking of the glaciers is therefore not a distant event high in the mountains but a problem connected directly to the taps of a major city. Water shortages do not stop at cut-off supplies; they ripple through the whole economy by reducing agricultural output, lowering hydropower generation, and raising food prices.

Points and Contrasts

In 2025 the region faced disasters of opposite character at the same time. While the Amazon suffered record-low water levels, the Andean highlands saw repeated flooding from heavy downpours. Mexico recorded its wettest June on record even as 85% of the country lay under drought, a seemingly contradictory situation.

What stands out is that, around the same resource of water, places with too much and places with too little exist side by side. In the southern cone, drought raised the risks of agricultural losses and wildfires at once, while in the Caribbean water shortages in island states grew more severe. COP30 was held in Brazil in 2025, strengthening the framework for climate dialogue. Whether that translates into actual greenhouse-gas reductions and flows of adaptation finance, however, remains to be tested.

The Author's View

What struck me most in this report is that the phrase "water crisis" carries very different weight depending on the region and the household. The harms of climate change are never distributed evenly. Water-intake restrictions and rising water bills fall disproportionately on households that cannot afford a storage tank or a private well—rural areas, Indigenous communities, and low-income families with weak access to infrastructure. When a city that depends on glaciers asks "how many years until the limit," it is worth remembering that for the outskirts and the countryside, that limit has often already arrived.

The simple fact that water comes out when you turn a tap is, in truth, a very delicate arrangement held up by glaciers, forests, and distribution networks. That is exactly why glacial retreat is not distant mountain scenery but a deeply political matter—of who gets supplied first, of water tariffs, of how irrigation water is allocated. I want to read this news not only as a statistic but as the quiet erosion of the very foundations of life for the people whose voices are hardest to hear.

Glaciers are the planet's memory. As they melt, we lose both the record and the water of our future.

※ This article is the author’s commentary based on public information. Please confirm the latest figures, dates and procedures with governments and primary sources. Quotations are kept minimal and sources are cited.