ICOMOS Welcomes the Heritage Adapts to Climate Alliance Initiative
Next year, the UN is planning to recommend to national governments a set of model indicators for measuring progress in adapting heritage sites and cultural practices to climate change. In order to help diverse heritage advocates engage with this UN planning process and guide it to a good result, ICOMOS has joined with the Preserving Legacies project and the Climate Heritage Network to launch the Heritage Adapts to Climate Alliance (HACA) initiative. Financial support for this initiative is being provided by the National Geographic Society and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Over the last two decades, ICOMOS has been actively involved in global initiatives addressing climate change and cultural heritage. ICOMOS established a Climate Action Working Group in 2016, became a founding member and the first Secretariat of the Climate Heritage Network in 2019, and has issued several resolutions, recommendations and reports aimed at including heritage conservation in climate adaptation strategies, including the ‘Global Research and Action Agenda on Culture, Heritage, and Climate Change’, a scientific outcome from a collaboration with UNESCO and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 2023. The last two ICOMOS Triennial Scientific Plans have focused on climate action, emphasising the need for fair, significant, and comprehensive efforts to drive change.
Recognising the vital role of cultural heritage in addressing climate challenges, ICOMOS welcomes the HACA initiative which was launched in July with the overall goal of to accelerating the integration of culture into climate adaptation policies, with the aim of helping deliver results in time for COP30.
The HACA initiative was launched in response to the adoption by national governments meeting at the 2023 UN Climate Conference (COP28) of the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) framework, known as the UAE Framework for Global Climate Resilience (UFGCR). This frameworks aims to provide guidance for national governments and other stakeholders to implement various actions, including those aimed at protecting cultural heritage from climate-related risks. The UFGCR includes a specific thematic target on protecting cultural heritage by creating adaptive strategies to preserve cultural practices and heritage sites, and by developing climate-resilient infrastructure that incorporates traditional, Indigenous, and local knowledge systems. It also recognizes Indigenous Knowledge and traditional knowledge as cross-cutting topics.
This breakthrough recognition of heritage in international climate policy offers a path to climate finance for heritage adaptation projects and to including heritage advocates in local, regional and national climate policy making. The Heritage Adapts to Climate Alliance has been launched to ensure that this potential is realized through robust, timely engagement by heritage advocates in the implementation of the GGA.
The current focus of HACA is the UAE – Belém work programme on Indicators for the Global Goal on Adaptation, a 2-year programme under the UFGCR dedicated to developing indicators to measure progress in protecting heritage sites and cultural practices from the effects of climate change. This work programme is expected to present its results at COP30 in Belém in 2025.
ICOMOS, on behalf of HACA, has made pivotal submissions in response to the programme, containing tools for measuring progress towards climate adaptation, methods for data collection and analysis, evaluation of data availability and identification of the areas needing new indicators to enhance climate resilience.
Through the HACA platform, HACA participants can access a comprehensive GGA information library, collaborate on research initiatives related to the work programme, and assist local communities and authorities in leveraging GGA heritage policies for effective cultural heritage adaptation. Additionally, the platform provides forums for discussing and assessing the current state of knowledge on climate resilience as it relates to cultural heritage. The HACA platform is one element of a broader heritage and adaptation online community of practice being launched by Preserving Legacies next year.
HACA is open to all stakeholders, professionals, advocates and researchers working in the field of culture, heritage and climate adaptation.
To join the project, fill in this form.