14 DAY TRIAL // Warming climate seems to menace the ruins of old cities, from ancient Sukhotai in Thailand to a 12th-century settlements off East Africa's coast, testimonials of history and culture that resisted through centuries of wars, looting and natural disasters.
"Our world is changing, there is no going back,'' said Tom Downing of the Stockholm Environment Institute.
People are very concerned about the ecological effects of global warming, like ,e.g. Coral "bleaching'' due to increased ocean temperature around the world or rising sea level sending damaging salt into low wetlands, like Donana National Park in Spain.
But increased recent floods linked to climate change have harmed the 600-year-old ruins of Sukhothai (photo) in northern Thailand,
Rising ocean waters could eventually cover ancient coastal settlements like the Old City on Kenya's Lamu Island, dating in the 12th century and chosen as a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Lamu is an important element in East Africa's history; Omani Arab sultans who ruled the coast of East Africa from Somalia to Mozambique first settled there before moving to Zanzibar.
The Old City conserves winding alleyways and an unspoiled 8-mile-long sandy beach, very alluring to tourists.
Ruins of Sukhothai ("dawn of happiness'' in Thai), founded in 1238, preserve artifacts from ancient royal palaces, Buddhist temples and city gates of once the capital of a Thai kingdom.
"Some of the developments we are faced with mean the parks of today may not be relevant tomorrow," said Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Program.
"Adaptation to climate change should and must include natural and culturally important sites."
The solution cannot be to simply "lock things up in museums and zoos."
"Instead, he said, governments worldwide must act to stem global warming".
The average global temperature rise of 1-degree during the 20th century is attributed to the increased levels in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane and others), byproducts of fossil fuel burning.
Runoff from melted polar ice will raise the ocean level, but global warming is already provoking some shifts in local climates and more extreme weathers.
165 from 189 countries ratified 1997 Kyoto Protocol asking for cutbacks in greenhouse gases, but the Protocol chocked with the denial of the United States and few others, who objected because of economical reasons.
The Kyoto accord stipulates that 35 industrial countries are obliged to decrease their emissions by 5 % below 1990 levels by 2012.
Downing warns that the effects of global warming go beyond the environment: "These are losses that affect all of us. All of us will feel the loss of our culture.''