Evaluating climate change risk at Ireland’s Tentative World Heritage Sites

In 2022 the updated Irish World Heritage Tentative List (WHTL) was submitted to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This contained three sites: the Passage Tomb Landscape of County Sligo; the Transatlantic Cable Ensemble: Valentia–Heart’s Content, County Kerry; and the Royal Sites of Ireland. This list is a necessary initial step towards receiving the coveted UNESCO World Heritage (WH) site designation, and sites must demonstrate the potential for Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) to be added to the list. In 2023 the UNESCO General Assembly ratified the Updated Policy Document on Climate Action for World Heritage. This explicitly calls on member states to consider the impacts of climate change in the nomination of properties for inscription on the WH List and to ensure that adequate strategies are in place to protect and preserve OUV. This report proposes a methodology and initial results for assessing the climate risk to all three Tentative List Sites, based on a thorough mapping of values and attributes as outlined during the Tentative List nomination process. It assesses potential impacts on these attributes based on future hazards identified from downscaled climate change projections for temperature and precipitation change and sea-level rise. Results indicate a wide range of potential hazards indicative of the varied nature of the three sites. These results should be understood as an initial assessment of climate risk to OUV and not as a wider assessment of site or community values, which require further assessment.