Before they disappear: Treasured UNESCO sites at risk from climate change

From the sinking city of Venice to the mass bleaching of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, climate change is drastically impacting some of the world’s most treasured heritage sites.

To date, over 1,000 bucket-list locations have earned a spot on UNESCO’s World Heritage list on account of their “outstanding universal value” to humanity.

But, if the world continues to warm – driven predominately by human activity through greenhouse gas emissions – many of these landmarks may lose some of those “outstanding” values or even cease to exist at all.

Perhaps the starkest example is Greenland’s impressive Ilulissat Icefjord, a World Heritage site where the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier is literally melting before our eyes, partly because of global warming.

Icebergs that broke off from the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier in Ilulissat, Greenland.

The fjord is even marketed by the Government of Greenland as an opportunity to witness climate change in action, and a destination to see “before it’s too late.”

“Virtually every World Heritage site has some level of threat from climate change,” said Adam Markham, deputy director of the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a science advocacy NGO based in the United States.

At some locations the threat is obvious and imminent.

Yellowstone National Park in the US, for example, is experiencing shorter winters with less snowfall, warmer rivers, shrinking lakes and wetlands, and longer fire seasons, according to a joint report by the United Nations Environment Programme, UNESCO and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Yellowstone contains half of the globe's known geothermal features, and is home to an array of wildlife including grizzly bears, wolves and bison.

Scientists estimate that nearly half of the wetlands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem could be lost, and more frequent fires will likely lead to its dense forest becoming a more open woodland, over time.

Elsewhere, El Nño events are warming waters around the Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador and disrupting food supplies on which many Galápagos species rely.

Rising sea levels and higher waves during storms are threatening to topple the mysterious moai statues on remote Rapa Nui – also known as Easter Island – in the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

Rapa Nui (Chile) —

Easter Island, or Hanga Roa, is the most remote inhabited island on the planet. Carved from solid basalt between the 13th and 16th centuries, the group of more than 800 massive stone monuments known as moai scattered across the volcanic landscape are the legacy of a Polynesian society that settled here around 300 AD.

Valletta (Malta) —

Ruled successively by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs and the Order of the Knights of St. John, which built the city in the 16th century, Valletta is one of the world's rare urban inhabited sites that's been preserved near perfectly. Crammed into a tiny fortified peninsula, the site comprises 320 monuments, making it one of the most concentrated historic areas in the world.

Yellowstone National Park (United States) —

For sheer diversity, Yellowstone National Park is among the world's great natural wonders. Contained within a 9,000-square-kilometer chunk of Wyoming, the world's first national park contains half of the globe's known geothermal features, and is home to an equally impressive array of wildlife including grizzlies, wolves and bison.

Bagan (Myanmar) —

It's still on the tentative list of sites to be brought into the UNESCO fold. But as Myanmar's tourism industry expands, Bagan's profile is gaining prominence. The capital city of the first Myanmar Kingdom, this enormous Buddhist complex on the Irrawaddy River contains more than 2,500 intricate monuments dating to the 10th century.

Goreme National Park and Cappadocia (Turkey) —

Sculpted by erosion, the Goreme valley and its surroundings contain rock-hewn sanctuaries that provide unique evidence of Byzantine art in the post-Iconoclastic period. Within the rugged natural landscape, villages and underground towns dating to the 4th century can be observed.

Angkor (Cambodia) —

Scattered between the twisting roots of the Cambodian jungle, this site dedicated to the Hindu god Vishnu contains the remains of Khmer Empire capitals dating from the 9th to the 15th centuries. Among the most famous of its 100-strong group of monuments is the Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the sculptural Bayon Temple.

Acropolis (Greece) —

Looming over the city of Athens, this ancient Grecian citadel was built in the 5th century BC and continually beautified through the years. Despite being attacked and pillaged by everyone from the Byzantines to the Venetians, the site still stands to provide important insight into Greek mythology.

Petra (Jordan) —

Between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea, Petra acted as the capital of the Nabataean caravanning kingdom from around the 6th century BC. Abandoned in the 2nd century AD after an earthquake crippled its water management system, the desert city carved from rose-red limestone remains one of the world's most important archaeological sites.

Galápagos Islands (Ecuador) —

Among the first sites to be listed by UNESCO in the 1970s, this otherworldly archipelago is located in the far reaches of the Pacific Ocean. On top of its bevy of endemic species that have remained unchanged for centuries, the island groups' location at the confluence of three ocean currents also attracts a diverse array of marine life.

Iguazu National Park (Brazil and Argentina) —

The spectacular semicircular waterfall that forms the border of Argentina and Brazil spans almost 300 meters in diameter and up to 80 meters in height. It's home to wildlife from neon-winged butterflies to sly caiman to elusive jaguar.

Great Barrier Reef (Australia) —

Composed of more than 3,000 individual reefs interspersed with more than 600 topical islands, the world's most extensive coral reef system has been protected since 1981. A 2012 study found that the delicate ecosystem has lost more than half of its coral since 1985 due to a combination of factors including coral bleaching caused by climate change.

Hampi (India) —

Located between emerald banana plantations in eastern Karnataka, the enormous group of monuments that comprise the former capital of the last great Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagara date to the 14th century. Hampi highlights include elephant stables, Kallina Ratha (Stone Chariot) and towering Virupaksha Temple.

Los Glaciares National Park (Argentina) —

Encompassing the largest ice mantle outside of Antarctica, this picturesque southern Patagonian park bordering Chile is one of the best places in the world to observe glacial activity. Its most famous ice mass is the cool blue Perito Mereno Glacier, from which giant icebergs can be observed crashing into the milky turquoise waters of Lake Argentino.