Resource information
While the negative impacts of climate
change on urban areas are well-known and widely discussed,
its implicit impacts on historic downtowns have not been
studied as extensively. In recent years, cultural heritage
conservation and valorization have increasingly become
drivers of local economic development. Many projects
supported by the World Bank in this field help leverage
cultural heritage for economic development while developing
infrastructure and services for residents and enhancing the
livability of cities. The World Bank has also been very
active in addressing climate change risks and increasing
resiliency of urban areas. This paper is an effort to merge
these two critical agendas. The paper investigates the
impacts of climate change on 237 world heritage cities (WHC)
and provides an overview of the geographic distribution of
these cities around the globe. It discusses the importance
of historic downtowns and provides various options available
to the governments of these cities to address risk
mitigation and adaptation to climate change. Further, it
provides examples of WHC which have taken action to address
vulnerability to the adverse impacts of climate change. This
report is organized in following five sections: section one
presents an overview of WHC, geographic distribution, and
the growth of the urban agglomerations to which they belong.
Section two presents the natural hazard risks and climate
change impacts facing WHC, their location on the coastline
or interior, and their rank in terms of level of
vulnerability. Section three outlines the characteristics
that historic cities have in terms of carbon emissions and
potential for climate change mitigation. Section four
discusses the sources of financing which WHC may turn to in
order to address climate change mitigation and adaptation.
Section five presents the climate change adaptation and
mitigation action plans being implemented in the WHC of
Paris, Tunis, Edinburgh, Mexico City, Hue, and Quito.
