In December 2020, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the organisation best known for its Red List of Threatened Species, issued a serious warning to humanity: climate change is now the greatest threat to the natural areas classified as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO, ahead of other factors such as invasive species, fire or human activity. According to the IUCN World Heritage Outlook 3 report, a third of these sites, 83 out of 252, are at risk from the effects of the great environmental scourge of our time, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, whose status is considered “critical” for the first time. Here we look at how climate change is affecting some of the planet’s most precious natural areas.
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