Millions of underwater and coastal sites around the world of great significance for humanity and heritage are being lost to climate change, warns the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Sunken cities, coastal sites, and portal constructions hold cultural and archeological information about how the world has dealt with climate change and rising sea levels over thousands of years, which could contribute to modern day climate strategies and solutions, the UN agency said, sounding the alarm at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.
Sea level rise poses significant risks to coasts, while warming waters and destructive storms threaten underwater sites rendered invisible by sedimentation, and historical artifacts such as shipwrecks, UNESCO says. Over the past 20 years, the specialized agency has championed the need for culture, identity, and humanity to be integrated in climate talks.
While COPs often focus on nature-based solutions, UNESCO draws attention to heritage- and cultural-based solutions, which are “equally important and affected equally and dramatically by climate change,” said Dr. Nuria Sanz, director of UNESCO Cairo.
Sanz said UNESCO has spent more than a decade collating knowledge on human evolution that can help strengthen the capacity of member states to understand and deal with prehistoric memories and legacy. UNESCO has access to data culturally collected through thousands of years of zoological and natural history that could supplement reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, she added.
But the challenge today is that information on underwater sites is lacking, Sanz said, pointing to the need to define and measure loss and damage related to our knowledge of prehistoric and historic times. In the coming decades, the big challenge will be deciding which sites to give up and what to protect, as climate adaptation measures address changing coastlines and shores.
Research focused below sea level will provide much-needed accurate big data on our adaptive capacity, the movement between continents, and how the Earth’s history has merged with human history over the last three million years, UNESCO says.
