Powering Climate Action Through Heritage Policies, Organisations, Research and Public Programmes

How are cultural heritage institutions, researchers, practitioners, civil society actors and policymakers responding to the climate emergency, and how might we achieve more integrated and radical action? This event will build on a range of European and international projects, policy initiatives and frameworks which aim to inspire radical change for climate action in and with the cultural sector.

Organised by the Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage and Global Change (JPI CH), Climate Heritage Network (CHN), Europa Nostra and  Reimagining Museums for Climate Action (RMCA)/ University College London Institute of Archaeology, it includes contributions by these actors as well as the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), International Council of Museums (ICOM), The Climate Museum NYC, the Italian Ministry of Culture and the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Education and Culture (DG EAC).

The event was set in the EU Pavilion at the United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP26, on the 11^thof November at 4 pm GMT. You can watch the event replay here.

This webpage acts as a supplementary resource to accompany the event. It contains links to various policy documents, initiatives, and projects discussed by speakers during the event.

Contributions towards UNFCCC and Paris Agreement processes

• Action for Climate Empowerment Dialogues
• Outcomes of a UNFCCC mandated Workshop on ways of enhancing the implementation of education, training, public awareness, public participation and public access to information so as to enhance actions under the Paris Agreement (Bonn, 2018): Action for Climate Empowerment Workshop
• McGhie, HA (2018, submission to Talanoa Dialogue). Museums as key sites to accelerate climate change education, action, research and partnerships
• McGhie, HA (2020, contribution to Doha review). Information on steps taken by global museums to implement the Doha work programme and in relation to Action for Climate Empowerment, including activities and results, best practices, lessons learned, and emerging gaps and needs
• McGhie, HA (2020, contribution to Doha review). Recommendations and views on future work to enhance the implementation of Article 6 of the Convention and Article 12 of the Paris Agreement from the perspective of museums

Submissions to other consultations

• McGhie, HA (2021, submission to UK All Party Parliamentary Group on the SDGs). Aligning climate goals and the Sustainable Development Goals: the potential of museums and other cultural institutions to animate policy goals and agendas https://bit.ly/3pDkphS
• McGhie, HA (2021, submission to Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association).  Submission on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association to advance climate justice, from the perspective of museums https://bit.ly/3CknZku

Policies, resolutions and declarations

• Rome Declaration of the G20 Culture Ministers, (Rome, 29-30 july 2021) – Addressing Climate Change through Culture is a founding principle of the Declaration adopted at the 1st G20 Culture meeting.
• Bremerhaven Declaration on the Role of Museums in Addressing the Climate Crisis, 2020
• Resolutions adopted by the International Council of Museums, Kyoto, 2019: On sustainability and the implementation of Agenda 2030, Transforming our World
• Museums, Communities and Sustainability
• The European Commission’s four-year work plan for culture: Council conclusions on the Work Plan for Culture 2019-2022
• The European Framework for Action on Cultural Heritage captures and scales up the success of the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018 in promoting and safeguarding Europe’s cultural heritage: European framework for action on cultural heritage – Publications Office of the EU
• The conclusions on risk management in the area of cultural heritage (2020) recall the importance of protecting cultural heritage against the various types of risks threatening it (natural hazards, climate change and man-made disasters): Council conclusions on risk management in the area of cultural heritage
• The Tokyo Protocol is a set of principles to successfully contribute to society and was explicitly endorsed and agreed upon by the world’s science centres/museums networks in support of Sustainable Development Goals at the Science Centre World Summit, Tokyo, 2017.

Reports and papers

• European Cultural Heritage Green Paper “Putting Europe’s shared heritage at the heart of the European Green Deal” produced by Europa Nostra in collaboration with ICOMOS and the Climate Heritage Network and the support of the European Investment Bank Institute.
• Brainstorming Report ‘Culture and the Sustainable Development Goals: Challenges and Opportunities’. Voices of Culture Structured Dialogue with the European Commission
• Workshop Report ‘Cultural Heritage and Climate change: New challenges and Perspectives for research’ published by JPI CH and JPI ‘Connecting Climate Knowledge for Europe’

Practical tools and toolkits

• Our Collections Matter Toolkit
• Museums and the Sustainable Development Goals
• Mainstreaming the Sustainable Development Goals in Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
• IFLA Library Map of the World, SDG Stories
• Accelerating Climate Action through the Power of Arts, Culture and Heritage – A Manifesto on Keeping 1.5° Alive COP26. This Manifesto provides key messages on culture and climate change aimed at the 2021 United Nations Climate Conference (COP26) and beyond.
• Safeguarding cultural heritage from natural and man-made disasters (2018): Safeguarding cultural heritage from natural and man-made disasters : a comparative analysis of risk management in the EU.
• Mobilising Museums for Climate Action: Tools, frameworks and opportunities to accelerate climate action in and with museums

Projects, Organisations and Initiatives

• Climate Heritage Network 
• Culture at COP
• Reimagining Museums for Climate Action
• Climate Museum New York City 
• Heritage Futures 
• Landscape Futures and the Challenge of Change: Towards Integrated Cultural/Natural Heritage Decision Making
• Curating Tomorrow
• European Green Deal 
• New European Bauhaus 

Publications

• McGhie, H (2020). Evolving climate change policy and museums. Museum Management and Curatorship, 35:6, 653-662, DOI: 10.1080/09647775.2020.1844589
• Caitlin DeSilvey & Rodney Harrison (2020) Anticipating loss: rethinking endangerment in heritage futures, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26:1, 1-7: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13527258.2019.1644530?src=recsys
• Caitlin DeSilvey, Harald Fredheim, Hannah Fluck, Rosemary Hails, Rodney Harrison, Ingrid Samuel & Amber Blundell (2021) When Loss is More: From Managed Decline to Adaptive Release, The Historic Environment: Policy & Practice https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17567505.2021.1957263
• Rodney Harrison and Colin Sterling (eds) 2021 Reimagining Museums for Climate Action. Museums for Climate Action, London. https://www.museumsforclimateaction.org/mobilise/book