Climate change is fast becoming one of the most significant risks for World Heritage sites, according to a new report released by UNESCO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The new report World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate, 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.

"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 generations.”

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

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

There are more than 1 000 World Heritage properties in 163 countries  - in 2014, a global analysis by researchers at the University of Innsbruck and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research identified more than130 cultural World Heritage sites at long-term risk from sea-level rise.

The new report uses a series of case studies from World Heritage sites around the world, many of them iconic tourist destinations, assessing the impacts of climate change at individual sites.

 Two of the case studies – the Statue of Liberty, USA and Venice and its Lagoon, Italy – demonstrate the scale of financial resources that will be required for increasing the resilience of many World Heritage sites in a changing climate.

To date, US$ 100 million has been allocated to the Statue of Liberty and adjacent Ellis Island for the restoration of utilities, services and visitor facilities damaged by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, and to ensure preparedness for the storms that are predicted to continue to increase in intensity in future, with more damaging storm surges resulting from sea-level rise.

Rising sea levels have already damaged 100s of buildings in Venice

In Venice, rising sea levels in the Adriatic have already damaged hundreds of buildings in Venice. Work is almost completed on a project to build gates to prevent flooding, costing more than US$ 6 billion ( EUR 5.4 billion+). The report says the ever more frequent flooding events experienced by the city during the last 60 years will be controllable when the mobile barriers between the lagoon and the sea come into operation in 2017.

Taking the form of a series of 79 flood gates distributed across the three entrances that connect the Venetian Lagoon to the Adriatic Sea – the MOSE project – the gates will rise whenever a tidal flood of 110 centimetres or more is predicted.  

To put this in context, the amount available to States Parties requiring international assistance to support site management through the World Heritage Fund totals just US$ 4 million – a drop in the ocean given the scale of response needed for the challenge of climate change, the report says.

At Stonehenge in the UK, issues causing most concern for are increasing rainfall amounts, more extreme rainfall events and worsening floods. Flash floods can result in damage through gullying and wetter conditions are also expected to increase the impact of visitors walking on the site.

The report provides an overview of the increasing vulnerability of World Heritage sites to climate change impacts and the potential implications for and of global tourism. It also examines the close relationship between World Heritage and tourism, and how climate change is likely to exacerbate problems caused by unplanned tourism development and uncontrolled or poorly managed visitor access, as well as other threats and stresses.

The report’s goal is to provide up-to-date information and a basis for action on climate change, tourism and World Heritage in the follow-up to the adoption of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change in December 2015.

The report contains a number of recommendations which lay out a series of priorities for the international community, national governments, the tourism industry and site managers.

Click here to download the full report World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate