World Heritage Sites at Risk from Climate Change
Climate change is quickly becoming one of the most challenging risks for World Heritage sites and the tourists who want to visit them, finds the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate,” released today by UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme, UNEP, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.
“Globally, we need to understand, monitor and address climate change threats to World Heritage sites better,” said Mechtild Rössler, director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre.
“As the report’s findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global temperature rise to a level well below 2 degrees Celsius is vitally important to protecting our World Heritage for current and future generation,” Rössler said.
The new report examines 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.
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