Climate change and World Heritage: relationship with the UNFCCC, state party obligations, use of the List of World Heritage in Danger, and the role of adaptation

The document argues that the World Heritage Committee should not defer climate mitigation issues to the UNFCCC, as state parties have independent obligations under the World Heritage Convention to protect properties from climate change. It asserts that site-level mitigation and adaptation are insufficient for highly vulnerable sites like coral reefs and glaciers, which require warming to be limited to well below 1.5°C. The briefing recommends using the List of World Heritage in Danger to enforce corrective measures based on a state's alignment with global emissions pathways.

• The UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement do not prevent the World Heritage Committee from addressing climate mitigation, as there is no evidence that the UNFCCC was intended to replace the authority of other treaty bodies. Deferring exclusively to UNFCCC processes creates a risk that World Heritage properties will be lost.
• State parties are obligated to protect the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of their properties by aligning national actions with a global warming pathway that sustains that OUV and by contributing their fair share of global emissions reductions. For the most vulnerable sites, such as glaciers and tropical coral reefs, the warming limit to sustain OUV is well below 1.5°C.
• Under Article 6(3) of the Convention, state parties have a non-discretionary obligation to avoid taking deliberate measures that could damage World Heritage properties in other states. In the context of climate change, emitting greenhouse gases is considered a deliberate measure that causes such damage.
• Focusing solely on site-level mitigation is inadequate because the vast majority of global emissions occur outside World Heritage boundaries, making the quantitative benefit of site-specific measures negligible.
• Adaptation is insufficient for many properties due to the speed and scale of warming; for example, while adaptation can address floods from glacial melt, only mitigation addresses the root cause of the melt.
• The List of World Heritage in Danger should be used for climate-threatened sites, with corrective measures based on whether a state party is aligning its actions with an emissions pathway consistent with protecting the property's OUV.

APA

Earthjustice (2020). Climate change and World Heritage: relationship with the UNFCCC, state party obligations, use of the List of World Heritage in Danger, and the role of adaptation. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/world-heritage-climate-change-unfccc-2020.pdf

Chicago

Earthjustice. Climate change and World Heritage: relationship with the UNFCCC, state party obligations, use of the List of World Heritage in Danger, and the role of adaptation. 2020. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/world-heritage-climate-change-unfccc-2020.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Earthjustice |title=Climate change and World Heritage: relationship with the UNFCCC, state party obligations, use of the List of World Heritage in Danger, and the role of adaptation |date=23 June 2020 |url=https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/world-heritage-climate-change-unfccc-2020.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{earthjustice2020climate, author = {{Earthjustice}}, title = {{Climate change and World Heritage: relationship with the UNFCCC, state party obligations, use of the List of World Heritage in Danger, and the role of adaptation}}, institution = {Earthjustice}, year = {2020}, month = jun, url = {https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/world-heritage-climate-change-unfccc-2020.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }