A decade of climate change

Kiribati is Gone | An aerial view of the South Tarawa atoll that separates the lagoon from the Pacific Ocean. The maximum elevation of the atoll is a mere three metres above sea level, and there are places where the island is only held together by a narrow local road banked by stone walls that prevent its erosion.

Kiribati is Gone | 2 - Dead coconut palms on Abaiang island that have lost their crowns due to salt-water flooding during high tides. Tebunginako, the village most affected, had to relocate because of rising sea levels and erosion. When sea levels rise, saltwater floods the islands, destroying vegetation and eventually killing the trees.

Kiribati is Gone | 3 – The way home is flooded, and the water rises even further if it rains. Severe weather with strong rains, winds and showers can have an even more damaging effect on the islands.

Kiribati is Gone | 4 – Children playing during the high tide that has flooded the road. Children use the high tides to play and swim, not yet worried about the future. Are they the last Kiribati generation to have a true childhood? Will they be forced to leave their homeland?

Kiribati is Gone | 5 – Portrait of a family in front of their home next to a volleyball court in Tebikenikoora (Golden Beach) village. Volleyball is one of the most popular sports in Kiribati. High tide floods the court and most of the surrounding area. The government has pledged to provide funds for additional sea walls.

Kiribati is Gone | 6 – Abarao village. Rina Mathew, 29. Mother and child photographed as the mother returns home from work. Ms Mathew works at Tobaraoi Travels, the only tourist agency on South Tarawa. The road to her house is flooded. Destroyed sea walls allow the sea to come onto the island when a storm comes with high tides. In the background, cars that Rina’s father collects to salvage their parts and use them in his workshop.

Kiribati is Gone | 7 – Building a man-made coral rock sea wall is the best defence people can mount against erosion and rising sea levels.

On Thin Ice | 1 - A portrait of the hunter Albert Lukassen. One day the sea-ice melted really quickly and the entire fjord lost most of its ice. When the 64-year-old Inuit man was young, he could hunt by dogsled on the frozen Uummannaq Fjord, on Greenland's west coast until June. This photo shows him there in April.

On Thin Ice | 2 - Greenlandic dog is not a pet dog but a working dog that Inuit hunters and fishermen use for dog-sledding. They are the least known casualties of climate change. With the disappearance of sea ice, they have become a burden, which is why some hunters are forced to shoot them. It is too expensive to sustain and feed them throughout the year when they can only use them for shorter and shorter periods of time.

On Thin Ice | 3 - A reflection of Uunartoq Løvstrøm, a lean 72-year-old hunter from Northern Greenland.

On Thin Ice | 4 - Sermeq Kujalleq Glacier is Greenland's largest and fastest-moving glacier. It is the bellwether of climate change in the region likely to contribute more to sea-level rise than any other glacier in the Northern Hemisphere. On average, the glacier has been moving nearly three times faster in recent years than it did in the mid-nineties, surging at a rate of 17 kilometres (10 miles) per year.

On Thin Ice | 5 - A polar bear skin dries on a rack outside the home of Ane Løvstrøm on Saattut Island. She's one of the few women in the community with the skill to fashion boots and trousers from the skin of the far north's greatest predator. Hunters prize her garments, which provide unparalleled warmth.

On Thin Ice | 6 – Uunartoq, 70, is lying prone on the ice, line-fishing through a hole he had made in the ice. Now and then he twitches the line with his hand to lure in the fish. His back pains, back from when he was a dogsled racer, sometimes force him to fish lying down. Due to the cold, he is wearing trousers and boots made from polar bearskin. He lives in a remote village in the north of Greenland, together with 250 other villagers and their 500 sled dogs. He is one of the last true hunters trying to lead a traditional lifestyle – subsistence hunting and fishing. Hunters struggle with shortening winters and unpredictable weather. They can only dogsled for a few months each year and have had to adapt and become fishermen.

On Thin Ice | 7 – Here, Uunartoq is trying to spot seals in the distance and is wearing white camouflage clothing. Greenland is home to 56 000 people and over 12 million seals. The number of seals is increasing and changing the most important industry in Greenland – fishing. The Greenland Institute of Natural Resources reports that approximately 150 000 seals are currently hunted every year and that even 500 000 could still be sustainable. However, hunting cannot expand because of an EU ban, which the people here find unfair.

On Thin Ice | 8 – Nielsine Løvstrøm, a 16-year-old student from Uummannaq in Northern Greenland. She stands next to a fishing rod, which is used to make holes in the sea ice for fishing. The photo was taken during a four-day hunting and fishing trip with the Uummannaq Children's Home. In this sanatorium for sick and orphaned children, students are given an opportunity to learn about the old Greenlandic traditions and values to get a sense of the roots of their culture and to explore how can they be implemented in modern life.

On Thin Ice | 9 – The settlement of Saattut sits on a 2.5 km island surrounded by sea ice about 26 km from Uummannaq in Northern Greenland. It's inhabited by 250 people and 500 sled dogs. People mostly survive on subsistence hunting and fishing. The sea ice increases the accessible territory – this is everybody's favourite time of the year as they can use their dogs for work and travel.

On Thin Ice | 10 – The arrival of the sea ice ends the isolation of island villages like Saattut, home to 200 people and 500 sled dogs. Freed from boats or costly air travel, residents take to sleds and snowmobiles for hunting trips and visits to relatives. No roads connect towns in Greenland, even on the mainland.

The Ice Stupas | 1 – This 33.5m high ice stupa near the village of Shara Phuktsey won first prize for the largest ice stupa in a 2019 competition. Its nearly two million gallons of stored water helped irrigate fields in four villages. The stupa also drew tourists: ice climbers came to scale its steep flanks.

The Ice Stupas | 2 – Sonam Wangchuk, the inventor of ice stupas, also created an alternative school near Leh, a Ladakhi city. The students have helped build some of the towers. Here a few of them celebrate Earth Day at the stupa at Phyang.

The Ice Stupas | 3 – Three students from the Karith middle school in Ladkah pose in front of the ice stupa they helped build, high in the mountains on the Pakistani border. Their teachers use the project to make science fun, but also to teach them how the world is affecting their village.
Led by their headmaster, Mohammad Ali, the students have helped build several ice stupas.

The Ice Stupas | 4 – Ice stupas are built in winter by channelling water from a mountain stream into a vertical pipe. Gravity drives the water out a nozzle at the top, and as cold air freezes the falling spray, a cone of ice rises around the pipe.

The Ice Stupas | 5 – Tsering Angchuk is a 53-year-old farmer from the village of Stase-Dho in Ladakh. He helped built an ice stupa 73 feet in height. He decided to join the water shortage battle. They are hoping an ice stupa will solve their problem and if necessary they will build a few more and hopefully more villagers will join them.

The Ice Stupas | 6 – A stupa, originally, is a rock mound that Buddhists build as a shrine for relics. In 2019, when the Phyang monks helped make this ice stupa, local artists created a shrine inside.

The Ice Stupas | 7 – Farida Batool is a student at the middle school in the village of Karith, high in the mountains on the Pakistani border. Led by their headmaster, Mohammad Ali, the students have helped build several ice stupas.

The Ice Stupas | 8 – Conical ice stupas serve as water towers, storing winter meltwater for spring planting. The youth group that built this one in the northern Indian village of Gya also installed a café in its base. They used the proceeds to take village elders on a pilgrimage. "No one takes them anywhere," said one of the youths.