Switzerland recently ratified an agreement to draft a new border with Italy — driven not by a political need, but rather an environmental one: the melting glaciers of the Alps. The agreement has been in place since May 2023, and after receiving Switzerland’s approval on September 27, it now awaits Italy’s final approval.
This is not the first time the border has been redrawn. In 2000, it was slightly amended due to a shift of around 330 to 490 feet. But the glaciers and snowfields that form significant sections of the Swiss-Italian border are only continuing to melt.
Over the past two years, Swiss glaciers have reached record melts, losing around 10% of their volume, according to the Swiss Glacier Monitoring Network. The European Geosciences Union claims it’s possible they will lose half of their ice by 2050. Europe in general has been warming twice as fast as the global average, according to the European State of the Climate 2023 study.
Mathias Le Bossé, an assistant geography professor at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, said that while the geographical changes aren’t necessarily shocking, they serve as a large marker of the increasing impacts of climate change.
“We’re likely to see this type of situation occur perhaps more and more frequently,” Le Bossé said. “Just like in other parts of the world, we’re experiencing an acceleration and an intensification of different phenomena.”
Le Bossé explained that boundaries are changed often — in this case, due to melting glaciers, and in others, falling rocks and crumbling slopes. But ultimately, small changes along the border line between friendly countries have little negative impact beyond the cause, he said.
“Boundaries, being always artificial, are also always likely to change depending on circumstances,” Le Bossé said. “I think [Switzerland and Italy] can manage this kind of change very pragmatically and peacefully.”
USC international relations professor Steve Lamy agrees that this won’t cause any notable friction between the two countries.
“There is no real geopolitical issue,” Lamy said. “These issues usually have different outcomes in areas where tensions exist between countries…[like] in the Arctic, Asia and Africa.”
However, there are a few minor economic concerns related to tourism in the Alps. As the Matterhorn — the natural border between Switzerland and Italy — continues to melt, its highest points have shifted into Italian territory. This means that under the new agreement, Switzerland gains slightly more territory.
The amount of land is inconsequential compared to its location, though, as Swiss and Italian economies both rely on tourism connected to skiing and other Alpine activities. For example, Zermatt is one of Switzerland’s most famous and expensive ski resorts, attracting hundreds of thousands of tourists, but the actual ski terrain is split amongst neighboring Italian resorts.
Although the economies of these border regions are largely intertwined, the joint Italian-Swiss commission emphasizes the importance of ensuring that border changes respect the interests of both countries and help maintain warm relations. When faced with a similar situation in 2022, the chief border official at Switzerland’s national mapping agency Swisstopo noted that slight adjustments are frequent, and are usually settled between surveyors without politician involvement.
However, in areas where political strain is prevalent, minor changes can have massive impacts.
The Arctic is the fastest-warming region on Earth, and is becoming increasingly contentious, primarily among the eight countries that make up the Arctic Council: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Iceland. The situation is further complicated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as melting ice has caused concern over the narrowing distance between NATO countries and Russia. Compounding these tensions, the availability of previously inaccessible minerals, oil deposits and shipping routes are intensifying competition between nations in the region as well.
Jack Williams, a geography professor and a climate change expert with the Center for Climatic Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said that beyond these economic and geopolitical factors, physical reworkings of the global maps can have large social impacts on the perception of global warming.
“A six-degree Celsius change is a really abstract concept for people,” Williams said. “…maps and features like the movement of a boundary is a really concrete way to help communicate climate change and help people understand what some of these impacts are.”
The melting Matterhorn has revealed more than just the consequences of climate change, though. Back in 2022, a 1968 plane crash wreckage was found in the remains of the Aletsch glacier. Last July, human remains of a German climber who went missing in 1986 were found. As the glaciers thaw, the mysteries hidden in the ice are also coming to the surface.
In some ways, this has turned the deteriorating Alps into a double-edged sword.
“There is sort of this kind of strange side benefit of new material being discovered for study,” Williams said. “But it’s a vanishing resource, and I think most scientists would prefer to keep the ice in place if possible.”