PARIS, (APP): Climate Change most dangerous threat to world cultural heritage: UN
The Statue of Liberty, Uganda’s gorilla forest, Stonehenge and Venice — the United Nations on Thursday listed 31 protected sites threatened by sea level rise, drought and other climate change effects.
“Climate change is fast becoming one of the most significant risks for World Heritage sites,” said a statement from the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) thinktank and two UN bodies.
Researchers reviewed existing data and reports to measure the climate-specific threat to 31 sites in 29 countries, ranging from coral reefs and tropical forests to deserts and archaeological icons.
And they found that “every site in the report is already experiencing some impacts of climate change,” according to lead author Adam Markham of the UCS.
Representatives of 195 nations agreed in Paris last December to limit average global warming to “well below” two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels, and 1.5 C if possible.
This must be achieved through deep cuts in fossil fuel use — coal, oil and gas which releases planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when burnt.
But scientists say that even a 2 C increase will mean a land-gobbling sea level rise, longer and more frequent droughts, dramatically-altered storm and rainfall patterns, and increasingly acute water shortages.
Beyond the 2 C threshold, the projected impacts worsen exponentially.
“As the report’s findings underscore, achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal… is vitally important to protecting our world heritage for current and future generations, said Mechtild Rossler, director of the UN culture agency’s World Heritage Center.
New York’s Statue of Liberty is threatened by sea-level rise and superstorms, Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park by hotter temperatures and drought, and England’s prehistoric Stonehenge monument by storms and flooding, the report found.
Along with the UCS thinktank, the report was compiled by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).