RESILIENT CULTURAL HERITAGE FOR A FUTURE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

• Author: Garcia, Barbara Minguez

INTRODUCTION

The negative impact of climate change on cultural heritage attracts significant attention today at the international level. Cultural heritage is a complex topic since it includes many different aspects, such as tangible--movable and immovable--and intangible manifestations; associated values such as historic, architectonic, aesthetic or religious; and diverse meanings for different groups of people, from the local community level, to the national and also the international level--with the creation of the World Heritage (WH) concept. The effects of climate change are impacting cultural assets and sites in different ways and countries, but the expected result is the same: loss of irreplaceable legacies from the past.

The international community has been raising awareness on the need for addressing the threat of climate change to cultural heritage by establishing institutional and legal frameworks. From the culture side, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted in November 1972 the "Convention concerning the protection of the world cultural and natural heritage," which recognizes the way in which people interact with nature, and the fundamental need to preserve the balance between the two. (1) The Convention establishes the criteria to inscribe sites in the WH List and commits state parties to protect and preserve their national heritage. A 2005 report, "Predicting and Managing the Effects of climate change on WH," followed by a 2006 WH Committee report, "The Strategy to Assist States Parties to the Convention to Implement Appropriate Management Responses," first highlighted the impact of climate change on a world stage. (2) One year later, the General Assembly adopted the "Policy Document on the Impacts of Climate Change on World Heritage Properties." In 2015 the WH Committee, emphasizing the increase of climate change impacts on heritage, supported the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). (3)

These initiatives included the UNESCO's advisory bodies: International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (ICCROM), (4) International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), (5) and International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). (6) In 2017, ICOMOS established a Working Group on Climate Change and Heritage, and launched a resolution to mobilize the cultural heritage community to help meet the challenge of climate change. (7,8) The resolution stated three key important messages:

1) Cultural heritage is both impacted by climate change and a source of resilience for communities;

2) Heritage sites and local communities' intangible heritage, knowledge and practices constitute an invaluable repository of information and strategies to address climate change;

3) Cultural heritage-based solutions to climate change mitigation/adaptation need to be emphasized.

From the climate change side, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)--established in 1987 to document and evaluate scientific information on climate change, its potential impacts, and adaptation and mitigation options--recognized in its Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) that climate change will affect culturally valued buildings through extreme events and chronic damage to materials. (9,10) A special report on Climate Change and Cities is planned for the AR7, and further collaboration with ICOMOS is being explored to include a potential Special Report on Climate Change & Cultural Heritage in a future IPCC cycle. (11)

The Paris Agreement together with the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015 brought a new opportunity to strengthen cultural heritage resilience. The Paris Agreement--which recognizes adaptation as global challenge and goal--aims to reduce vulnerability to climate change across sectors by supporting national efforts and international cooperation. The Agreement recognizes the importance of understanding risk and the role of sustainable development in reducing it and addressing the potential damage and loss associated with adverse impacts of climate change. (12) The SDG's target 11.4 calls for strengthening efforts to protect and safeguard the world's cultural and natural heritage directly reflecting the WH Convention, (i) and Goal 13 aims to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. (13)

From the disaster reduction side--and following its predecessor the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015--the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030 (SFDRR) aims to achieve a substantial reduction of disaster risk including cultural assets. Under Priority 1, it proposes systematic evaluation and recording for disaster losses and impacts, including cultural heritage. Likewise, under Priority 3, aims to enhance the protection of cultural and collecting institutions and other sites of historical, cultural heritage and religious interest, and therefore, enhance cultural resilience of persons and communities. (14) Ian Kelman analyzes how the SFDRR mentions climate change, as well as potential implications for dealing with it within the context of disaster risk reduction. (15)

Relevant actors working on climate change adaptation and risk reduction for cultural heritage include the World Bank, particularly through the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR). (16,17) The World Bank is very active in addressing climate change, recognizing it as imminent threat to development and ending poverty and increasing resilience to climate change is one of GFDRR's core operating principles. (18) Since 2017, with initial support from Japan, resilient cultural heritage is being progressively included into programs and activities. (19) Also, the World Monuments Fund (WMF), a private nonprofit organization that protects heritage worldwide, founded in 1995 the global program World Monuments Watch to identify cultural heritage sites in danger, (20) progressively reflecting the increase of threats connected to climate change. And the voluntary initiative Climate Heritage Network launched in October 2019, aims to promote support and cooperation between different level of governments, institutions and organizations committed to achieve the Paris Agreement. (21)

There is a long list of actors at different levels, working to connect disciplines, develop studies and research, establish frameworks for action, test new initiatives and projects, and foster international cooperation. The end goal of these actions is to improve the resilience of world cultural heritage to the impacts of global warming and climate change. This paper does not intend to be exhaustive but seeks to provide a general vision of the current international scene by analyzing some relevant and recent publications, academic papers and initiatives. It is articulated around three interconnected concepts: 1) Cultural heritage: in the face of increasing climate change threats; 2) Disaster risk management: developed for the specific characteristic of cultural heritage; 3) Climate change: from the perspective of understanding risk to cultural heritage.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND CULTURAL HERITAGE

Building on UNESCO definition, cultural heritage relates to both tangible and intangible legacies, including artifacts, monuments, group of buildings and sites--archaeological and underwater--that have a diversity of values including symbolic, historic, artistic, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological, scientific and social significance, as well as practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills and instruments, and cultural spaces associated therewith that communities recognize as part of their identity. (22,23)

Cultural heritage is also understood as a non-renewable resource of knowledge, identity, and history, connected to economic value, livelihood and sustainable development though tourism and cultural industries. (24,25,26) Countries usually establish their own and different categories of cultural heritage to provide protection and prioritize actions. (ii,27) Additionally, UNESCO considers some cultural and natural heritage to have an outstanding universal value (OUV) to humanity: the World Heritage (WH) sites respect national sovereignty and legislation, but belong to all the peoples and are protected under the 1972 Convention. (28)

The cultural heritage international community acknowledges that climate change is currently one of the most significant and fastest growing threats to people and their heritage worldwide. (29 ) It is also considered a threat multiplier that increases vulnerability and exacerbates other stresses such as pollution, conflict over resources, habitat fragmentation, and loss of intangible cultural heritage. (30) Direct and indirect impacts of climate change on heritage sites may cause loss of integrity, authenticity, and in case of WH sites, OUV.

However, climate change impact assessment is more complex when related to cultural heritage and its different forms of expression. Historic environments suffer more from climate instability. For example, changes in rainfall patterns and temperatures that do not affect modern structures may cause serious damage to buried or exposed archaeological sites, and historic buildings and museum collections are usually more affected by relative humidity, as old drainage systems are by increasing rainfall. (31) At the same time, modern modifications may impact heritage (e.g., installation of air-conditioning and cooling systems) and require further research on the environmental behavior of traditional constructions. (33) Heritage also suffers from indirect climate change-related impacts, since they might allow conditions for illicit excavations, trafficking of cultural objects or jeopardize preservation of movable art. (34)

The WH network has proved useful in documenting climate change impacts, sharing lessons learnt, and raising awareness using their...