- The list began in 1978 and has over 1,150 sites nominated by their host nations and includes many popular tourist destinations.
- It includes glaciers of Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks.
- According to the reports released one third of these famous glaciers are expected to disappear by 2050 because of climate change.
The United Nations’ cultural agency has issued a warning about ice sheets on Kilimanjaro. The Dolomites, as well as Yosemite and Yellowstone, may vanish by 2050. The New York Times reported on the impact of travel on climate change.
UNESCO’s list
Making the UNESCO World Heritage List is a kind of gold seal of approval in the tourism world.
The list, which began in 1978, includes tourist destinations such as the Great Wall of China, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and Brazil’s Central Amazon Conservation Complex.
It also contains some of the world’s most famous and visited glaciers, including those in Yosemite and Yellowstone National Parks.
Wipe-out threat
However, according to a report released last week by the agency, climate change is expected to wipe out one-third of them by 2050.
The last remaining glaciers in Africa, in Kilimanjaro National Park and on Mount Kenya, are likely to vanish.
Those on Mont Perdu in the Pyrenees, which connects France and Spain, and in Italy’s Dolomites.
The report was released just days before the start of the United Nations’ COP27 climate change conference in Egypt.
Wake-up call
The travel industry, which contributes significantly to global carbon emissions, was challenged, with a footprint estimated to be between 8 and 11 percent of total greenhouse gasses.
According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, aviation accounts for approximately 17% of total travel carbon emissions.
“The report was a stark reminder of the critical role the travel industry plays in preserving sensitive sites and reducing carbon emissions.” says James Thorton.
The CEO of Intrepid Travel, a company that specializes in sustainable travel and organizes trips to many of the glaciers mentioned in the report.
“It’s definitely a wake-up call,” he said.
“The key message is that there is no cure for climate change for the travel industry.
We must take immediate action to decarbonize.”
Doomed disappearance
Glaciers can be found at fifty of UNESCO’s World Heritage sites, with 18,600 glaciers identified.
According to the report, one-third of the glaciers in these areas are “doomed to disappear by 2050.”
“These are projections,” said Tales Carvalho Resende, a Brazilian UNESCO researcher and one of the report’s authors.
“Of course, we hope we’re wrong, but these are hard science projections.”
He claims that glaciers will vanish regardless of “climate scenarios.”
Way of Saving
However, two-thirds of the glaciers in World Heritage sites could still be saved.
According to the report, if global warming is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to UNESCO, the glaciers on the list lose 58 billion tonnes of ice per year, which is equivalent to France and Spain’s combined annual water use.
Melting is responsible for nearly 5% of observed global sea-level rise.
Massive drops in renewable energy prices, combined with global political mobilization, have led scientists to this conclusion.
This century’s warming will most likely be between two and three degrees Celsius, far below the disastrous projections of four to six degrees Celsius.
However, limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius is highly unlikely, and even one or two degrees of warming will result in more extreme weather, environmental disruption, and suffering for millions of people.
Travel industry
Nonetheless, Mr. Resende stated that the UNESCO report demonstrates that the travel industry can play a significant role in preserving World Heritage sites and changing traveler behavior.
He cited a 2019 ban prohibiting tourists from climbing Uluru, a massive monolith in Australia that is sacred to the Anangu, an Aboriginal group that is the rock’s custodian.
Tourists have largely respected the ban, which came after decades of campaigning by the Anangu people.
It has given park rangers more time to maintain the flora and fauna at the World Heritage-listed Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park.
Positive tourism
Mr. Resende described it as an example of how tourism can be changed by education and collaboration with local communities.
Learn how to better protect sensitive locations, which may be applicable to reducing emission-producing behaviors.
“Expedia and Kayak, for example, can encourage people to travel less frequently by advertising weeklong trips rather than three-day or weekend excursions,” he says.
According to Mr. Resende, a traveler who flies once a year for a longer vacation will have a lower carbon footprint than a traveler who takes multiple, shorter flights.
Pledge signing
Last year, at the last COP conference in Glasgow, Scotland, more than 300 members of the trillion-dollar global tourism industry, including tourism operators, hotel chain executives, and tourism board leaders, signed the Glasgow Declaration on Climate Action in Tourism.
More than 530 stakeholders have signed the pledge since then.
The agreement required them to submit a concrete and transparent plan within 12 months to cut carbon emissions in half by 2030 and achieve “net zero” carbon emissions by 2050.
According to Jeff Roy, executive vice president of Collette Tours, a travel company that organizes trips to World Heritage sites, travel companies have a “special obligation” to confront the industry’s carbon footprint.
“The good news is that the travel industry has banded together to share resources and collaborate in ways we have never seen before to transform tourism in relation to climate action,” he said in a statement.
“Much more needs to be done quickly, as the rate of climate change accelerates.”
“Intrepid, for example, has begun busing tourists between some destinations rather than flying, which is a departure from previous practices,” Mr. Thornton said.
Tourist overcrowding
The report’s release sparked fears that tourists would flock to see the glaciers before they vanished, worsening overcrowding in national parks and other sensitive natural areas.
“All national parks suffer from overcrowding, and they’ve had to do drastic things over the last decade to deal with this issue,” said Fred Bianchi, director of Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Glacier National Park project center in Montana.
Although the park was not mentioned in the UNESCO report, scientists believe it could be glacier-free by 2030.
Climate change
Because of the pandemic, many parks implemented a reservation system.
Mr. Bianchi believes the UNESCO report provides another reason to keep that type of system in place.
According to Luther Likes, a booking agent at Gray Line Travel, more tourists should see the damage caused by human caused climate change.
Which plans trips to Yosemite National Park, where two glaciers, Lyell and Maclure, have been receding for decades.
“Seeing it in person has a different impact,” Mr. Likes said.
“To be honest, it’s terrifying.”
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Source: NY Times
