Climate change - Averting catastrophe | DW Documentary

Danny Arnold and his friend scale the dangerous but awe-inspiring Pitz Palü glacier in Switzerland at 4,000 meters altitude. While thrilling, scientists warn that such glacier adventures may soon become impossible due to global warming melting glaciers.

The Arctic, Antarctic, Alaska, and Russia's vast permafrost regions are hotspots experiencing rapid climate change. As the frozen ground thaws, infrastructure is damaged and greenhouse gases trapped underground are released, accelerating warming.

Glaciers across the European Alps are retreating at an alarming rate due to rising temperatures, with some estimated to disappear completely by 2100. This is already impacting mountain communities that rely on tourism.

On Indonesia's Pantai Bahagia - Happy Beach - rising sea levels and floods have left the village sinking into the water. More than half the children are out of school due to damp, foul classrooms.

Experts predict that by 2050, extreme weather and sea level rise will have disturbed the global economy and displaced 40 million Indonesians alone, with climate migration already underway.

In Sudan, a fair trade organization helps women plant acacia trees, which stabilize soil, prevent desertification, provide income from gum arabic, and give hope for combating climate change through reforestation.

Permafrost holding the mountains together is melting across the Alps, causing destabilization and increasing the risk of deadly landslides, as tragically seen in Bondo, Switzerland in 2017.

Norway is building a facility to capture shipborne carbon emissions from across Europe, liquefy them, and inject them deep under the North Sea floor, with a huge potential storage capacity.

At a Munich lab, researchers have bio-engineered yeast to efficiently produce a sustainable palm oil alternative, which could reduce reliance on destructive palm plantations driving deforestation in countries like Indonesia.

Prolonged droughts in the Alps have led to devastating agricultural and ecosystem impacts and water shortages, prompting desperate measures to supply remote mountain pastures and winter sports resorts with water.

Innovative textile facades developed at Aachen University can reduce cooling costs, energy use, and carbon emissions from buildings, helping address increased urban heat resulting from climate change.

Lake Chad, a vital water source for millions in central Africa, has shrunk over 90% since the 1960s due to decreasing rainfall, destroying livelihoods and forcing migration as conflict brews over scarcer resources.

Despite an exceptional 5 meter snowfall in 2018, Switzerland's glaciers experienced catastrophic melting that summer, underscoring the immense threat of accelerating climate change.

In Russia's far north Pleistocene Park, ecologist Nikita Zimov is attempting to recreate a mammoth ecosystem to regenerate hardy grasslands that will reflect sunlight and rebuild permafrost to mitigate climate change locally.

Due to melting permafrost, the rapidly expanding Batagaika crater in Siberia known as the 'Gateway to the Underworld' highlights risks to infrastructure across Russia's thawing frozen north.

The next years are critical - we must fight on with maximum effort for any chance of restabilizing our climate. Unconventional ideas like Pleistocene Park spark hope, but time is running out.