Ice glaciers that once loomed over the Svalbard landscape, nearly 800 metres above sea level, have been likened now to “ghosts, haunting the Arctic” in a series of images released by Greenpeace this week illustrating the extent to which ice coverage has retreated in the last century.

Described as ‘shocking’ by campaigners within the environmental NGO, the photographs serve as a follow-up to a series of pictures captured by the renowned Swedish photographer, Christian Åslund 20 years ago, documenting the pace of glacial retreat across the Norwegian Polar region.

The original project involved recreating 20th century photos stored in the depths of the Norwegian Polar Institute archives and developed to show the world the speed and extent at which Polar ice has been vanishing in the decades since. While sailing aboard the Greenpeace vessel ‘Witness’, Åslund revisited glaciers he first documented in 2002 as well as photographing others, new to his project. 

First released in 2004, Åslund’s images are still being shared today, illustrating that where there were once ‘vast glacier walls’, there is now just soil and water without any ice.

“At so many of the glaciers I photographed for this series, we saw the same story – ice walls completely gone and glaciers retreating back into nothing,” said Åslund. “They illustrate just how quickly our planet is changing as the climate crisis worsens.

“The Arctic is our sentinel – it’s where the climate and ocean crisis converge and where the impacts of these crises are seen first and felt most keenly.”

It isn’t new news that the rapid warming of the Arctic region has global consequences. Melting glaciers and ice sheets are causing sea levels to rise while impacting the ocean’s carbon absorption balance, leading to undesirable, environment-altering impacts such as ocean warming and acidification. 

Intrinsically linked, the climate and ocean crises are one of the same, and, as the climate crisis accelerates, the ocean’s ability to protect against its worst impacts, sustain coastal communities, and support marine ecosystems is being damaged at an unprecedented scale.

“Svalbard’s glaciers are now ghosts, haunting the Arctic. Even if, as a scientist, I know the terrible facts about the Arctic warming – seeing these pictures is always heartbreaking,” said Dr Laura Meller, project lead of Greenpeace Nordic.

“Here at the top of the world, we can hear an alarm from our planet, and can see – laid bare before our eyes – the fundamentally connected futures of oceans and our climate. Stopping climate breakdown goes hand in hand with ocean protection to create space for ocean life to recover, thrive, and help us avoid the worst impacts of warming.”

The Arctic region is warming more than twice as fast as the rest of the world, and signs that the region is suffering severely from the climate crisis are accelerating. The rapid phase-out of fossil fuels will be critical to mitigating the damage. So too, is protecting the ocean. With the election of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States, we’ll likely witness varying degrees of slowing down on major climate and ocean action from North America quarters; that’s certainly the picture Project 2025 has painted in recent months.

It’s why upcoming discourse between world leaders at summits like COP29 will prove to be vital in the coming weeks and months for upholding commitment towards the 30×30 target. Greenpeace is calling on governments to ratify the UN Ocean Treaty by June 2025 so that the creation of ocean sanctuaries in the high seas can begin.

Alongside this, the organisation is demanding global agreement on a moratorium on the dangerous deep sea mining industry.

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