Out of a heap of broken images, Chernobyl seeks World Heritage status
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
While we're at it, we might also add the bleached coral reefs, one the biggest landfills.
Of course, the UNESCO world heritage status usually comes with the intention of preserving said heritage...
Well, it's not like we have really a choice here anyway.
Preserving the case around reactor block 4 and not building any new human settlements nearby already is something we will have to do for the foreseeable future.
I guess the concrete structure of the buildings in the town itself would last for some time without much maintenance, so IMO the more immediate threat to preservation here would probably be tourists fidgeting with the stuff left behind.
The site does need to be preserved and maintained, just not because of its cultural value.
The problem is: the UN countries can't even be bothered to put up the small sum of money for feeding refugees (delinquent payments and resulting food cuts were the major trigger for the 2015 migration) or for relinquishing patents for COVID-19 vaccines... it will end up in a similarly disastrous state as it already is - and possibly even worse, given the UN's reputation as an useless paper tiger.
The obvious fix would be a permanent funding stream for the UN via its own taxes - say, for example, a 0.5% tax on all individual incomes (no matter if from employment or capital gains) of all membership countries. That could fund stuff like handling refugees, fights against pandemics, restructuring after disasters, or peacekeeping interventions without nations dooming operations (cough USA vs WHO) for political "gain".
I wouldn't appreciate this at all. The UN isn't comprised of elected officials. Many of the members represent authoritarian regimes. I don't want them collecting taxes (and enforcing it) or making decisions for and around my country.
The original goal behind the UN's creation was to maintain lines of communication between superpowers during tense periods and to create basic standards like defining basic human rights. I would like that to remain its purpose.
The problem is: we, as collective humans, now have pressing urgent problems that can only be solved collectively and not on a national level. Climate change as the most obvious elephant in the room, international tax evasion and other issues relating to international mega corporations, erosion of trust in media and science, religious and ethnic extremism sending many countries into conflict, enormous poverty and wealth disparity, countries essentially taken over by criminal gangs - solving these conflicts needs some form of international cooperation.
And right now, there is only the UN as some sort of global discussion forum we have. The time for stalling is over, the world needs action.
You could see all kinds of massive abandoned structures here and there. So much effort put in, yet so little benefit gained. What a sad legacy from the Soviet union.