UNESCO’s World Heritage List covers 1154 properties (897 cultural, 218 natural, 39 mixed) in 167 countries. 52 sites are included on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Climate change is a key threat to World Heritage. World Heritage properties are increasingly affected by the impacts of climate change and more vulnerable to damage or loss in the future. Their continued preservation requires careful analysis and understanding of these threats to their Outstanding Universal Value and responding to them effectively.

Increase in global temperatures lead to decreasing glaciers and sea-ice, or permafrost, to extreme weather events, including coastal flooding and storms, droughts and fires. These have severe impacts on people and their lives, to their tangible and intangible heritage and to the natural environment, landscapes and biodiversity.

World Heritage properties also harbour options for society to mitigate and adapt to climate change through ecosystem benefits, such as water and climate regulation, that they provide and the carbon that is stored, for example in World Heritage Forest or marine sites. Cultural heritage, on the other hand, can convey traditional knowledge that builds resilience for change to come and leads us to a more sustainable future.

World Heritage properties serve as climate change observatories to gather and share information on applied and tested monitoring, mitigation and adaptation practices. The global network of World Heritage also helps raise awareness on the impacts of climate change on human societies and cultural diversity, biodiversity and ecosystem services, and the critical importance of the world’s natural and cultural heritage for our survival.

The lecture will present impacts and future risks to our World Heritage and foster a better understanding of climate change to our precious sites. It also highlights current discussions such as the World Heritage climate change policy and international obligations in heritage conservation.