Archived press release

World Heritage Committee must take action to protect Everest and other top sites from climate change

10 July 2006

The World Heritage Committee is being urged by an international coalition of lawyers and environmentalists to take urgent action to protect some of the world's finest World Heritage Sites, including Mount Everest, from global warming when it discusses the issue at its annual meeting in Lithuania this week. The campaign has the backing of a number of eminent people, including Sir Edmund Hillary. The WHC is due to discuss the issue later today (Monday 10 July 2006).

The Committee is also due to receive the results of an investigation into the impact of climate change on World Heritage sites, carried out by a group of experts. The review was set up at last years WHC annual meeting after petitioners called for four WH sites to be placed on the World Heritage danger list because of the threats they faced from global warming. A fifth petition was submitted in February 2006. The sites are Mount Everest/ Sagarmatha National Park (glaciers), the Peruvian Andes (glaciers), Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park in the US and Canada and the Great Barrier and Belize Barrier (coral) Reefs [3].

The World Heritage Convention legally requires all countries to pass sites listed under the convention intact to future generations. But campaigners argue that unless urgent action is taken on climate change, this will not happen. The campaigners are calling on the World Heritage Committee to:

• recognize that countries that have signed up to the World Heritage Convention must significantly cut their greenhouse gas emissions as part of their duty to protect and transmit World Heritage Sites to future generations;

• spell out the need for those countries who are also Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and/or the Kyoto Protocol to take this duty into account when negotiating under the UNFCCC/Kyoto Protocol processes;

• send a mission of qualified observers to visit each petition site, to evaluate the nature and extent of the threats and to propose the measures to be taken;

Co-Director of the Climate Justice Programme, Peter Roderick, said:

"The World Heritage Committee has a vital role to play in protecting the planet's best parts from climate change. The dangers are clear, and the main cause of the problem is known. The Committee has a duty to protect these sites. It must uphold the World Heritage Convention as an effective international agreement and recognize the legal need for significant cuts in climate pollution."

Friends of the Earth International's climate campaigner, Catherine Pearce said:

"Climate change is already having a terrible impact on some of the world's most spectacular natural heritage sites. But the World Heritage Committee can play a crucial role in trying to protect these sites for future generations. It must pledge immediate action to try and mitigate the threat these sites face, and make it clear to the international community that cuts in carbon dioxide emissions are urgently needed."

Sir Edmund Hillary, who was the first man to summit Everest, with Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, is also backing the campaign to protect Everest (Sagarmatha National Park). In a statement last year he said:

"The warming of the environment of the Himalayas has increased noticeably over the last 50 years. This has caused several and severe floods from glacial lakes and much disruption to the environment and local people.

"I agree the practical idea of remedial action of draining the lakes before they get to a dangerous condition is the only way to stop disasters. Therefore I support the petition to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee lodged by Pro Public and others, requesting the inclusion of Sagarmatha National Park in the list of World Heritage in Danger as a result of climate change and for protective measures and action".

Notes

1. The 21 members of the World Heritage Committee are: Benin, Canada, Chile,

Cuba, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lithuania (Chair), Madagascar, Mauritius, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Spain, Republic of Korea, Tunisia and the United States of America (http://whc.unesco.org/en/committeemembers/).

2. The 30th session of the Committee is taking place in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 8 to 16 July 2006 (http://whc.unesco.org/en/185/).

3. The dangers facing the five petition sites are summarized below, with links to the petitions, and contacts:

Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park, Nepal (SNP): The Himalayas have warmed about 1C since the 1970s, almost twice the global average, affecting the SNP's peaks, dominated by Sagarmatha/Mount Everest, and its hundreds of glaciers and glacial lakes. This warming has led to the retreat of 67% of Himalayan glaciers, and an official study has identified several lakes in the SNP as potentially at risk of outburst flood. Continued melt will increase summer river flows for a few decades, with expected increased frequency of floods, followed by a severe reduction in flow to major rivers such as the Ganges and Indus as the glaciers disappear. It also poses an economic threat for Nepal, where the glacial melt is critical for the agricultural industry that 80% of the population relies on.

Petition link: www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release.

Huascaran National Park, Peru (HNP): Since 1967, scientists estimate that more than 22% of the mass volume of glaciers in Cordillera Blanca, which the HNP covers, has been lost, most during the past five years. This has been accompanied by a warming tendency of 0.252C per decade (1965-1994). The combination of high local seismic activity, climate change, increased glacier and hill-slope instability, and rapid increase in the development of high-altitude glacial lakes has created an extremely dangerous scenario for the two million people living within the immediate vicinity. In under 50 years, there could be no glaciers in the HNP and water will be scarce.

Petition link: www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, Canada-USA (Waterton): Recent warming temperature (almost 2C between 1910 and 1980) are causing most of this region's glaciers to retreat at an accelerating pace. Waterton is now at risk of losing its glaciers - the iconic symbol of the park. The US part of Waterton, Glacier National Park, once had over 150 glaciers, but only 27 remain. At the current rate of global warming, these glaciers are expected to all vanish by 2030. This will significantly change the aesthetics of the park and cause substantial changes in its ecosystem.

Petition link: www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO%20-%20Waterton- ¬
Glacier%20International%20Peace%20Park%20petition.

Great Barrier Reef, Australia (GBR): Coral bleaching of the world's longest barrier

reef has increased significantly as human-induced, sea surface temperatures have risen over the last two decades, especially in 1998 and 2002. Thermal stress is projected to be 3-6 times higher in 2050 than even the worst recent period of thermal stress seen on coral reefs so far. Being perhaps the best managed marine park in the world will not make the GBR immune from the impacts of climate change.

Petition link: www.climatelaw.org/media/Australia.scigl.report.

Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, Belize (BBR): The BBR includes seven marine protected areas that protect vital coastal ecosystems and communities and provides food and livelihoods for its inhabitants. It has bleached substantially over the last decade, especially in 1995, 1998 and 2005. Between 1997 and 1999 about half the live coral in Belize was lost due to the combination of bleaching and Hurricane Mitch, with at least one reef inside WHS's losing over 90% of their corals. There has been little recovery in the last eight years, possibly due to continued stress from warmer waters, hurricanes and growing localized impacts from the expanding tourism industry.

Petition link: http://www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust