The Future of Our Pasts
In 2019, the ICOMOS Climate Action Working Group published their first report on the intersection between climate change and heritage. Copies of the report were delivered to each member state present at the World Heritage Committee meeting in Baku, Azerbaijan, on July 3rd, during an event at the Session.
With its 26 authors, the goal of this report was to create an understanding of the multiplicity of challenges faced by cultural heritage under the climate emergency. Written for site managers, scientists, researchers, climate activists and policy makers, the report highlights a number of ways that the core considerations of cultural heritage intersect with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. These include mitigating greenhouse gases, enhancing adaptive capacity, and planning for loss and damage.
Click on the report cover to download
Suggested citation: ICOMOS Climate Change and Cultural Heritage Working Group. 2019. The Future of Our Pasts: Engaging Cultural Heritage in Climate Action, July 1, 2019. Paris: ICOMOS.
Excerpt of the Report of ICOMOS (World Heritage Committee. 2019. Item 5 of the Provisional Agenda: Reports of the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies, WHC/19/43.COM/5B, p. 6):
A.13. Climate change and Sustainable development
45. ICOMOS’s aim is to mobilize the Cultural Heritage Community to help meet the challenge of Climate Change (19GA 2017/30). Through its Climate Change and Heritage Working Group (CCHWG), ICOMOS is helping to develop a rapid Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) tool for world heritage sites; in partnership with CyArk, improving methodologies for documenting world heritage sites at risk to climate impacts; and outlining ways cultural heritage supports the Paris Agreement. In furtherance of World Heritage Committee Resolutions (40 COM 7; 41 COM 7 and 42 COM 7), the CCHWG is exploring new ways to work with the IPCC; and coordinating WHC/19/43.COM/5B, p. 6 Report of the Advisory Bodies ICOMOS inputs into the update of the WHC’s 2007 Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties. The CCHWG recently sponsored regional events in North America (USA), Latin America (Argentina) and the Pacific (Fiji). ICOMOS national and scientific committees also undertook a variety of efforts related to cultural heritage and carbon mitigation, climate adaptation, planning for loss and damage and climate action.
46. ICOMOS continues to work intensively towards achieving Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, focusing on raising awareness through international events and external partnerships, as well as cooperation among ICOMOS Committees.
47. In July 2018, ICOMOS participated in the UN High-Level Political Forum (HLPF) and coordinated an official Side Event on “Heritage for Sustainability: Implementing SDG 11.4 through Local Voices and Global Agendas for Cultural and Natural Heritage”, and is again planning to attend the 2019 HLPF.
48. In the second half of 2018 and early 2019, ICOMOS was represented at various other international meetings, including the Colloquium on ‘Perspectives for Sustainability in World Heritage Sites in Switzerland’; the event on ‘Women and Culture’ in the European Development Days; the 1st International Congress Megalopolis: Resilience in the Large City, Puebla, México, July 2018.; the 20th World Urban Campaign Steering Committee Meeting; and the 3rd Regional Conference of the OWHC-Asia Pacific on ‘Heritage and Sustainable Tourism’; the Salzburg Global Seminar session in March 2019 on “What Future for Cultural Heritage? Perceptions, Problematics, and Potential”, and contributed to the Brussels Declaration on ‘Strengthening the Gender Perspective in Culture and International Development’; the UN-Habitat 2020-25 Strategic Plan; and the Plan for Activities in 2019 of the UCLG Committee on Culture.