Friends of the Earth/ Climate Justice
Programme Press Release
Embargoed: 00:01 hours GMT, Monday 10 July
2006
WORLD HERITAGE COMMITTEE MUST TAKE ACTION
TO PROTECT EVEREST AND OTHER TOP SITES FROM
CLIMATE CHANGE
Annual meeting discusses global warming
threat
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 1°C
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:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release
.
Contact in Vilnius 9-15 July(via Peter
Roderick/ Catherine Pearce – see end of
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
0.252°C 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:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release
. Contact: Carlos Antonio Martin Soria
Dall'Orso (Carlos Soria), Foro Ecologico del
Peru,
<carsoria@ec-red.com>
(GMT -5h)
Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park,
Canada-USA (Waterton): Recent warming
temperature (almost 2°C 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:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO%20-%20Waterton-Glacier%20International%20Peace%20Park%20petition
.
Contacts: Erica Thorson, Clinical Professor
of Law, International Environmental Law
Project, Oregon, US: + 1 503 768 6715 (GMT
-8h)
<ejt@lclark.edu>
; Kassie R. Siegel, Center for Biological
Diversity, California, US + 1 760 366 2232 x
302 (GMT -8h)
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
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:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/Australia.scigl.report
. Contacts: Contacts: Louise Clifton, Media
Officer, Greenpeace Australia Pacific, + 61
438 04 041(GMT +11h); Ilona Millar, Principal
Solicitor, Environmental Defender's Office
Ltd (NSW)
<ilona.millar@edo.org.au>
(GMT +11h).
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
.
Contacts: Candy Gonzalez, Vice President,
Belize Institute of Environmental Law and
Policy (BELPO), + 501 824-2476 (GMT -6h)
<belpobz@starband.net>
; and/or Melanie McField, Coordinator,
Healthy Reefs for Healthy People Initiative,
Smithsonian Institution
<mcfield@healthyreefs.org>
or
<mcfieldm@si.edu>
.
Further contacts and detailed
Briefing:
Peter Roderick, co-Director, Climate
Justice Programme, in Vilnius, + 44 7796 340
893 (mobile) (GMT +3h)
Catherine Pearce, Friends of the Earth
International, in Vilnius, +44 (0)7811 283
641 (mobile) (GMT +3h)
Neil Verlander, Friends of the Earth Press
Office (London), + 44 20 7566 1674 (GMT
+1h)
Earth Press Office (London), + 44 20 7566
1674 (GMT +1h)
*World Heritage and Climate Change:
complying with international law *
* Briefing *
* Summary *
The World Heritage Convention safeguards
outstanding and irreplaceable natural and
cultural heritage for all the peoples of the
world, wherever it maybe, by designating
World Heritage Sites. Under that Convention,
Parties have a legal duty to protect and
transmit such Sites to future generations.
This duty is placed primarily on the host
States. It extends, secondarily, to all State
Parties, whose activities are damaging or
could damage Sites situated in other
countries. The major greenhouse gas emitting
States are Parties to the World Heritage
Convention and they will not fulfil this duty
without significant cuts in their
emissions.
Since 2004, 37 organizations and
individuals have drawn attention to this
legal duty as it relates to some of the
world's most outstanding mountain areas and
coral reefs facing climate change damage.
They have submitted 5 petitions to the World
Heritage Committee to add Mount Everest, the
Peruvian Andes, US and Canadian glaciers, and
the Great Barrier and Belize Barrier Reefs to
the List of World Heritage in Danger because
of climate change. The World Heritage
Committee decides the question of whether to
give a Site extra protection by adding it to
the Danger List, and allocates funding.
At its 29th session in July 2005, the
Committee held an unprecedented discussion on
the issue of climate change and world
heritage, acknowledging the petitions and the
serious climate threats posed to World
Heritage Sites. It asked a group of experts
to report on these risks at its 30^th session
in July 2006 in Lithuania, and this group met
in Paris in March 2006. The Paris meeting
recognized the unique scale and urgency of
the risks, and in considering these at its
meeting in Lithuania we want the 21-member
Committee to:
*(1) recognize that the duty on State
Parties to the World Heritage Convention to
protect and transmit World Heritage Sites to
future generations requires significant
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions;*
* *
*(2) note the need for those State Parties
who are 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;*
* *
*(3) decide to/ /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.*
More information follows on the issues and
the action the Committee needs to take.
*/
/*
*/1. All States have a legal duty to protect
World Heritage/*
* *
The World Heritage (WH) Convention
safeguards outstanding and irreplaceable
natural and cultural heritage for all the
peoples of the world, regardless of location.
The main mechanism for doing this is the
designation of World Heritage Sites. Under
the Convention, Parties have a duty to ensure
the protection and transmission of WH Sites
to future generations. This duty is placed
primarily on the host States (Art 4). It
extends, secondarily, to all State Parties,
whose activities are damaging or could damage
WH Sites situated in other countries. Parties
must establish policies and services for the
protection of WH and undertake appropriate
legal, scientific and other measures in this
regard (Art 5). Parties recognize that such
heritage constitutes a world heritage for
whose protection it is the duty of the
international community as a whole to
co-operate (Art 6.1), and each State Party
undertakes not to take any deliberate
measures which * _ might _ * damage directly
or indirectly WH Sites in other countries
(Art 6.3).
*Developed countries that choose not to
reduce their greenhouse gases emissions do so
in the knowledge of the results of that
choice for World Heritage glaciers and coral
reefs, in their own and other countries, and
for people's lives and livelihoods. *
*/2. The World Heritage Committee has
specific obligations…../*
The WH Committee is responsible for the
implementation of the WH Convention,
establishes the List of World Heritage,
defines the use of the World Heritage Fund
and allocates financial assistance upon
requests from State Parties.
The WH Convention provides that Committee
decisions shall be taken by a majority of
two-thirds of its members present and voting;
and that a majority of Committee members
constitutes a quorum (Art 13.8).
*
/ The 21 States Parties of the World
Heritage Committee /
*
/ /
*
/ Date of Election /
*
*
/ State Party /
*
*
/ Year membership ends /
*
October 2001
India
2007
October 2003
Benin, Chile, Japan, Kuwait, Lithuania, New
Zealand, Netherlands, Norway
2007
October 2005
Canada, Cuba, Israel, Kenya, Madagascar,
Mauritius, Morocco, Peru, Spain, Republic of
Korea, Tunisia, United States of America.
2009
*/ /*
*/....including the List of World Heritage
in Danger/*
The WH Committee also has an obligation to
establish, keep up to date and publish a List
of World Heritage in Danger.
The Danger List is a mechanism to provide
additional protection to WH Sites threatened
by serious and specific dangers, for the
conservation of which major operations are
necessary, and for which assistance has been
requested under the Convention (Art
11.3).
The Secretariat at the WH Centre ascertains
the condition of a property that is
threatened and the feasibility of taking
corrective measures. The Committee may also
decide to send a mission of qualified
observers from IUCN or other organisations to
visit the property, evaluate the nature and
extent of the threats and propose
preventative or corrective measures to be
taken in response (Operational Guidelines for
the Implementation of the World Heritage
Convention (“OG”), paras 172-176). Properties
may be added to the Danger List if they face
“ascertained danger” (defined as “faced with
specific and proven imminent danger”) or
“potential danger” (defined as “faced with
major threats which could have deleterious
effects on its inherent characteristics) (OG,
para 180).
*The Committee shall allocate a specific and
significant portion of the World Heritage
Fund to financing of possible assistance to
WH Sites on the Danger List (OG, para
189).*
The WH Committee has power to add a WH Site
to the Danger List, without the consent of
the host State, if necessary, by taking a
decision to do so by a two-thirds majority of
the voting and present members.
*Climate change danger listing petitions on
World Heritage glaciers and coral reefs*
* World Heritage Site *
* Petitioners *
*Great Barrier Reef**, *Australia
(submitted September 2004)
* Greenpeace Australia Pacific
* Climate Action Network
Australia
Report by the Sydney Centre for
International & Global Law & the
Environmental Defender's Office, New South
Wales
*Sagarmatha National Park**,* Nepal
(submitted November 2004)
Statement of support, July 2005:
* Sir Edmund Hillary
* Forum for Protection of Public
Interest (Pro Public)/Friends of
the Earth Nepal
* Prakash Mani Sharma
* Pemba Dorjee Sherpa
* Temba Tsheri Sherpa
* Job Chandler Heintz, Esq.
* Sir David Attenborough
* Sir Chris Bonington
* Reinhold Messner
* Stephen Venables;
* Richard Heap
* Peter Roderick
* Lalanath de Silva
* International Public Interest
Defenders (IPID)
*Belize** **Barrier Reef**,* Belize
(submitted November 2004)
* Belize Institute of Environmental
Law and Policy (BELPO)
*Huascaran National Park**,* Peru
(submitted November 2004)
* Foro Ecologico del Peru
* Carlos Antonio Martin Soria
Dall'Orso
* Foro Ciudades Para La Vida
* Arquitect Liliana Miranda
*Waterton-Glacier International Peace
Park**,* US/Canada
(submitted February 2006)
* Center for Biological Diversity
* Center for International
Environmental Law
* David Suzuki Foundation
* Defenders of Wildlife
* Defenders of Wildlife–Canada
* ForestEthics
* Green House Network
* Greenpeace USA
* Humane Society International/Humane
Society of the United States
* International Environmental Law
Project
* Job Heintz
* Montana Wilderness Association
* Svitlana Kravchenko
* The Pembina Institute
* Wildlands CPR
* Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation
Initiative
*/3. The World Heritage Committee has
already recognised the climate threats after
the filing of petitions and has begun to
address the issue/*
Increasing temperatures are already
affecting glaciers and coral reefs. These
effects will get worse. The UNESCO website
tells organizations and individuals that they
can help by informing the Committee of
existing threats to WH Sites. 37
organisations and individuals have therefore
submitted five petitions to the Committee on
climate change threats to WH Sites, as listed
above. The main serious and specific dangers
they are facing from climate change are
listed below. The petition sites all face
both ascertained and potential danger from
climate change. In its unprecedented
discussion and decision on the issue at its
29^th session in July 2005, the Committee
noted the (then four) petitions, appreciated
the genuine concerns raised, and also noted
that “the impacts of climate change are
affecting many and are likely to affect many
more World Heritage properties, both natural
and cultural in the years to come”.
The Committee requested the WH Centre to
establish a broad working group of experts to
review the risks. This group met in Paris in
March 2006 to jointly develop a strategy and
to report to the Committee at its meeting in
July 2006 on “Predicting and managing the
effects of climate change on World Heritage”.
The Committee also encouraged UNESCO “to do
its utmost to ensure that the results about
climate change affecting World Heritage sites
reach the public at large, in order to
mobilize political support for activities
against climate change and to safeguard in
this way the livelihood of the poorest people
of our planet.”
*/ /*
* Serious and specific dangers
facing the five petition sites *
*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.**
*Sagarmatha National Park**, **Nepal**
(SNP)*
The Himalayas have warmed about 1°C 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.
*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.
*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 0.252°C 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.**
*Waterton-Glacier International Peace
Park**, **Canada**-**USA** (Waterton)*
Recent warming temperature (almost 2°C
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.
* *
*/4. The World Heritage Committee must now
act to ensure compliance with international
law for the benefit of future
generations/*
The damage that has already occurred to
these sites will only get worse. As IUCN
stated in March 2006, “there is little doubt
that climate change will impact on the
natural values and integrity of World
Heritage sites, thus affecting their
outstanding universal value and,
potentially, their listing as a natural
World Heritage property”.
If governments are to support the WH
Convention as an effective legal instrument
for protecting the most outstanding parts of
our planet, it is necessary to make
significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions
(mitigation) and to ensure best management
practices (adaptation). Both must be urgently
addressed, as adaptation without mitigation
would be futile.
This requires joined-up thinking, and
standing both inside and outside the
bureaucratic boxes, as Parties to the WH
Convention, the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto
Protocol (KP) are essentially the same
States.
We now need the same kind of joined-up
thinking on World Heritage and climate change
that the international community showed is
possible to protect whales from trade, when
Parties to the International Whaling
Commission (IWC) asked Parties to the
Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) not to allow trade
in whale products until the IWC lifts the
moratorium on commercial whaling.
The Committee has already responded
positively to the petitions, and to the issue
of climate change, and now is the time for it
to take urgent action.
*At its 30^th session in July 2006 in
**Lithuania**, it is therefore necessary for
the World Heritage Committee to:*
* *
*(1) recognize that the duty on State
Parties to the World Heritage Convention to
protect and transmit World Heritage Sites to
future generations requires significant
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions;*
* *
*(2) note the need for those State Parties
who are 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;*
* *
*(3) decide to/ /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.*
* *
* *
* *
* Contacts and further information
*
* *
*Great Barrier Reef**, **Australia** *
Louise Clifton, Media Officer, Greenpeace
Australia Pacific, + 61 438 04 041(GMT
+11h)
Ilona Millar, Principal Solicitor,
Environmental Defender's Office Ltd (NSW)
<ilona.millar@edo.org.au>
(GMT +11h)
*Sagarmatha National Park**, **Nepal** *
Prakash Sharma, Pro Public/Friends of the
Earth Nepal: + 9771 4269 828
<propublic@wlink.com.np>
Catherine Pearce, Friends of the Earth
International: + 44 20 7566 7123; + 44 07811
283641 (mobile)
*Belize** Barrier Reef Reserve **System**,
**Belize** *
Candy Gonzalez, Belize Institute of
Environmental Law and Policy (BELPO),
+ 501 824-2476 (GMT -6)
belpobz@starband.net
<mailto:belpobz@starband.net>
Melanie McField, Coordinator, Healthy Reefs
for Healthy People Initiative, Smithsonian
Institution
<mcfield@healthyreefs.org>
or <
mcfieldm@si.edu
<mailto:mcfieldm@si.edu>
>
*Huascaran National Park**, **Peru** *
Carlos Antonio Martin Soria Dall'Orso
(Carlos Soria), Foro Ecologico del Peru
<carsoria@ec-red.com>
*Waterton-Glacier International Peace
Park**, **Canada**-**USA** *
Erica Thorson, Clinical Professor of Law,
International Environmental Law Project,
Oregon, US: + 1 503 768 6715 (GMT -8h) <
ejt@lclark.edu
<mailto:ejt@lclark.edu>
>
Kassie R. Siegel, Center for Biological
Diversity, California, US
+ 1 760 366 2232 x 302 (GMT -8h)
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
More information on the petitions, including
copies, are available here:
http://www.climatelaw.org/media/UNESCO.petitions.release
Peter Roderick, Climate Justice Programme, +
44 20 7388 3141 June 2006
--
--
Neil Verlander
Press Officer
Friends of the Earth
020 7566 1674
07712 843 209 (m)
www.foe.co.uk
Press office direct line: 020 7566 1649
|
