World Heritage icons at risk from climate change

Climate change is one of the biggest risks for World Heritage sites, according to a new United Nations report released at the UN Environment Assembly on Thursday.

The World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate study was launched by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Environment Program (UNEP), and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), at the global ministerial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Assembly is taking place at the headquarters of the UN Environment Programme in the Kenyan capital and brings over 1,200 high-level delegates together to address the global environmental agenda.

Mechtild Rössler, Director of UNESCO's World Heritage Center, said: "Globally, we need to better understand, monitor and address climate change threats to World Heritage sites."

Rössler added:  "As the report's findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting global temperature rise to a level well below 2°C is vitally important to protecting our World Heritage for current and future generations.”

The study lists 31 natural and cultural World Heritage sites in 29 countries that are vulnerable to increasing temperatures, melting glaciers, rising seas, intensifying weather events, worsening droughts and longer wildfire seasons.

It documents climate impacts at iconic tourism sites - including Venice, Stonehenge and the Galapagos Islands - and other World Heritage sites including South Africa's Cape Floral Kingdom; the port city of Cartagena, Colombia; and Shiretoko National Park in Japan.

Adam Markham, lead author of the report and Deputy Director of the Climate and Energy Program at UCS, said: "Climate change is affecting World Heritage sites across the globe… Some Easter Island statues are at risk of being lost to the sea because of coastal erosion.”

Markham added: “Many of the world's most important coral reefs, including in the islands of New Caledonia in the western Pacific, have suffered unprecedented coral bleaching linked to climate change this year. Climate change could eventually even cause some World Heritage sites to lose their status."

Elisa Tonda, UNEP's head of the Responsible Industry and Value Chains Unit, said: "World governments, the private sector and tourists all need to coordinate their efforts to reduce carbon emissions and to protect the world's most treasured cultural and natural resources from the impact of tourism activities."

Ms Tonda added: "Policies to decouple tourism from natural resource impacts, carbon emissions and environmental harm will engage a responsible private sector and promote change in tourists' behaviour to realise the sectors' potential in some of the world's most visited places."

The report recommends that, as World Heritage sites must have "Outstanding Universal Value," the World Heritage Committee should consider the risk of prospective sites becoming degraded by climate change before they add them to the list.