Climate Change Threatening UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Know Why One Country Is Trying To Hide

A UNESCO report released recently has highlighted the threat faced by iconic heritage sites globally due to climate change. Famous and popular tourist attractions like the Statue of Liberty in New York City, Stonehenge in United Kingdom, Easter Island and Galápagos islands feature among the 31 natural and cultural world heritage sites in 29 nations mentioned in the report. However, Australia's Great Barrier Reef is missing from the list even though it is being threatened by destructive coral bleaching due to abnormally mild ocean temperatures caused by global warming. In fact, 95 percent of the Great Barrier's northern reefs has already been killed or damaged.

According to a report, Australia's ambassador to UNESCO influenced the section on the country to be scrubbed off due to worries that the truth would hamper the nation's tourism industry. A Deputy Director with the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), Adam Markham however said that the list was made before the global bleaching event came to the forefront, but he added that the original story had a mention of the climate change risking the reef.

"I was asked to review an international scientific report on the impacts of climate change on World Heritage sites and tourism. I reviewed a case study on the Great Barrier Reef, focusing on the increasing risks to tourism from climate change," said Will Steffen, professor at Climate Council."Overnight the report was released - but mysteriously, the Great Barrier Reef chapter had been cut completely. I was astonished, given we've just witnessed the worst coral bleaching event in the Reef's history."

Called World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate, the report was co-authored by UNESCO, UCS and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). Mt. Everest and Yellowstone National Park are also among the sites mentioned on the list. The World Heritage sites are facing a grave environmental threat due to manmade global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions resulting from burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal, as per the organizations.

The effects of global warming could also have an adverse impact on local economies dependent on the tourism industry according to the report, and it called for action that will protect the globally popular tourist sites, which have "universal value to humankind". The report concluded with the suggestion that world leaders need to work on the policies decided at the Paris Agreement, to prevent temperatures on our planet from increasing more than two degrees Celsius.