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Framework For Climate Action in Culture & Heritage
Framework For Climate Action in Culture & Heritage
Framework For Climate Action in Culture & Heritage
heritage organisations
1 Overview and principles
This framework aims to help cultural and heritage organisations think about how to:
• manage the risks of climate change for their own future
• make a contribution to tackle ‘global climatic disruption’1
• deal with other aspects of environmental damage, which might contribute to the
cause or be an effect of climate change.
It may be most useful for museums, galleries, archives, libraries and heritage bodies
but it contains much of relevance to related sectors2.
2 Ten principles
To underpin the framework, organisations will need to adopt some or all of these
principles, adapting and expanding them as relevant to their situation.
2. The survival of our own organisation as it is, is only important so that we can
contribute to wider social and global challenges.
3. Sustainability is not about the survival of every initiative but the evolution of our
services to meet environmental, cultural and educational needs as they change.
1 Used by John Holdren, President Obama’s advisor on environmental policy, as a replacement for the term climate
change. It conveys more accurately the unpredictable, dangerous and global nature of the situation.
2 The framework is conceived for the UK, especially England where culture is governed by Department for Culture,
Media & Sport whose ‘family’ also includes media & broadcast, sport, tourism & the creative industries.
5. We need to make our assets even more accessible to aid urgent and pragmatic
learning from them. This may involve increasing digital access to our culture and
knowledge.
8. We must aim to think systemically to deal with the complexity of the situation, so
that we can continually reassess our priorities.
10. We should drive towards contextualisation, so that artefacts and knowledge are
more dynamically placed into an ecosystem of landscape, biodiversity and
human economics and creativity.
Mitigation by:
• Reducing the risk of climate disruption worsening
• Reducing emissions
• Protecting wilderness (that held in stewardship or by indirect support)
• By supporting green design
Adaptation by:
• Forward-thinking planning for the risks of climate disruption
• Protecting and strengthening assets
• Moving assets or not developing them in risk areas
• Developing sustainable infrastructure
• Helping communities deal with change and loss
Public service broadcasters, arts agencies, science or design bodies, should consider
how to Mitigate and Adapt to climate change through both their Infrastructure and their
Public Mission.
Infrastructure:
• Balance of both mitigation & adaption
• With buildings, landscapes, administrative practices, travel, technology
• Not forgetting hidden infrastructure such as ethical finance
Public Mission:
• Support and encourage mitigation & adaptation actions by the wider public
• Learning from the past to develop new solutions
All in the cultural and heritage sectors have missions to sustain cultural activity, to
preserve heritage in perpetuity and to help people cope with change and prepare for
challenge.
This chart lists the climate change risks identified by the 4th Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change in 2007 and it suggests some contributions the sector can make to
mitigate or adapt to them. It may be helpful to identify these actions as opportunities.
Note that the 4th Panel was based on science conducted up to 2005. Models since then,
for example by MIT in 2009, identify greater risks as ice at both poles is melting much
faster than predicted. The IPCC 2007 report did not account for polar melting or the
release of methane from frozen tundra, but focused on glacier melting and thermal
expansion of the oceans.
IPPC’s risks posed Cultural & heritage organisations can aid work to:
by climate change
Danger to up to 118 • Explore the experience of people in places such as Bangladesh or
million people Egypt, to understand the impact of severe flooding.
losing their • Describe and promote engineering & ecosystem solutions e.g. the
communities to the Delta Project to enable people to learn and adapt them.
sea (and new
• Record and interpret the threatened heritage of coastal, estuary/
models suggest the
flood-plain landscapes and peoples, so that a) we raise awareness
risk is faced by 600
of its value to help tackle rising sea levels b) preserve knowledge &
million)
rescue/move heritage artefacts.
• Help these communities face the threat to their homes and
livelihoods by a) using cultural & creative means to help them
understand the science/engineering behind coastal defence &
climate change mitigation so that they can be active citizens and
b) so that they are psychologically prepared to deal with change,
loss and possible need to move home & business.
• Contribute to imaginative coastal defence and coastal living
schemes, accessing science & cultural heritage knowledge &
contemporary art/design thinking
• When planning new coastal/estuary cultural developments, build
coastal defence into architectural & landscaping plans if the area is
protected enough from erosion/flood to be a sustainable proposal
Risk of famine due • Help communities learn about resilient and sustainable crops and
to the threatening about new approaches to food production such as permaculture.
of crops through • Contribute to seed and plant heritage projects.
aridity, flood,
• Develop the skills and capacities in communities to grow their own
altered growth
food in gardens and allotments.
cycles and pests
[Note, this is • Reduce food waste and help people cope with food rationing by
combined with loss of raising awareness of good nutrition, storage and cooking practices.
biodiversity caused by • Expose the connections between biodiversity/ecosystem
factors other than destruction and climate change.
climate change]
A large increase in • Explore the experiences of people where such diseases are more
the range of common and threatening.
diseases such as • Design creative ways of resisting insect-borne diseases.
malaria
More coexistence of • Learn about and invent ways that diverse cultures have
cultures and exchanged and lived harmoniously together.
languages in • Support work to record artefacts, knowledge and language as they
habitable areas are lost, fragmented or adapted into new communities.
• Ensure that museums/cultural centres can adapt collections &
programmes to increasing cultural diversity.
A shift of public • Find ways to help people make their own culture and enjoyment.
resources away • Explore ways that public cultural resources can be used more
from inessentials efficiently, can share & reuse infrastructure, reduce new buildings
& new initiatives that become money drains
• Explore how green infrastructure can save money.
Fundamental • Work with cultural & creative mediators to help people avoid fixing
conflicts between into extreme positions of either indulgence or repression of liberal
those who respond values.
with decadence and • Promote an approach to education and problem-solving that is
those with based on dialogue, enquiry and pragmatism.
authoritarian moral
• Provide spaces for people from diverse backgrounds to share views
stances
on ethics in a changing situation.
Greatly increased • Sensitively explore the experiences and outcomes of nuclear and
threats of nuclear terrorist attacks.
war and terrorism. • Use cultural diplomacy and other initiatives to promote
international peace.
4.2 Local risks
The risks to the UK have been identified and visualised by the UK Climate Projections
team in DEFRA.
Apart from the global risks identified above, it is likely that the main risk to UK culture
and heritage is related to water, including too little of it:
• Subsidence from drought causing damage to buildings and infrastructure
• Fires in forests and on heathland affecting biodiversity and cultural heritage in
landscape
The UKCP09 maps show how many thousands of listed buildings and heritage
attractions are located in flood risk areas. Apart from the suggestions on how to tackle
to the global scenario, organisations in the UK need to address these risks by:
5 Resources
http://ukcp09.defra.gov.uk/content/view/6/6
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/publications/lc_trans_plan/lc_trans_plan.aspx
http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/DCMS_SDActionPlan_07.pdf
http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/publications/6003.aspx/
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/EN/Treaties/Html/199.htm
http://globalfloodmap.org/
http://www.greenermuseums.org/
http://ecoch.wordpress.com
http://www.rsaartsandecology.org.uk/home
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Climate-Change/
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/antenna/climatechange/
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-chl/w-countryside_environment/w-
climate_change.htm
http://www.climatechangeandyourhome.org.uk/live/
http://envirodigital.wordpress.com/about/