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MILUTARENA-Formidlings- og koordineringstiltak knyttet for miljø- og utviklingsforskning

Cultural Heritage in Climate Planning (HiCLIP): Networking activities by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU).

Awarded: NOK 0.64 mill.

Cultural factors such as intangible and tangible heritage are strategic elements that localize climate actions and increase their sustainability by considering sociocultural practices and meanings. If the cultural dimension is overlooked, climate mobilization will remain incomplete, risking perpetuating technocratic patterns and unstainable dynamics. Through the HiCLIP project, NIKU contributed to consolidating the Heritage Network (CHN), a global, voluntary, mutual support network of arts, culture, and heritage organizations committed to aiding their communities in tackling climate change and achieving the Paris Agreement. HiCLIP activities were directly connected to CHN Working Group 4 (WG4), which objective was delivering and disseminating a scientific assessment of the inclusion of cultural resources and the role given to the cultural sector in climate policies and plans. HiCLIP’s main outcome is a scientific report of a pilot project assessing nine climate plans from eight countries. HiCLIP report was launched at the 2021 UN Climate Conference, known as COP26, in Glasgow, UK, at the culture side event held for the CHN General Assembly. The work of the CHN WG4 has gone beyond this event to cover international symposiums, European conferences, and Norwegian events to disseminate the project results. HiCLIP international activities were coordinated by Dr. Paloma Guzman (NIKU) and Dr. Cathy Daly (Lincoln University). In addition, national activities were undertaken by NIKU. HiCLIP outputs are useful to cultural heritage experts and academics for 1) developing better climate strategies that are locally and culturally grounded, 2) enhancing the climate response of the Cultural Heritage sector, 3) setting a basis for transdisciplinary collaborations targeting the implementation of sustainable climate action and cultural resources management. HiCLIP dissemination activities targeted academic and practitioners' audiences in international and Norwegian platforms and forums. Related activities informed on policy and planning areas where cultural resources play a strategic role while highlighting entry points for the cultural sector to better align their efforts with broader local climate actions. HiCLIP report has been a strategic resource for achieving the main CHN results, which include filling the culture gap at COP26; the creation of the Manifesto Accelerating Climate Action through the Power of Arts, Culture, and Heritage; and the COP26 and Climate Policy, a Guide to the Cultural Dimensions. The HiCLIP network has been particularly beneficial to NIKU. It has fostered its international visibility as an academic institution leading climate-related research and consultancy services. As a result, Dr. Guzman and Dr. Daily were among the researchers selected to participate in the International Meeting on Culture, Heritage, and Climate Change. The meeting was co-sponsored by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, along with the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) and UNESCO. Lastly, the network positioned NIKU as part of the HORIZON project THETIDA granted in 2022, which monitors climate impacts on coastal cultural heritage and includes Svalbard as a case study.

HiCLIP's main outcomes consisted of shifting the paradigm of cultural heritage academics and practitioners to see climate planning as roadmaps to explore broader linkages between cultural heritage conservation with current climate and societal challenges. Through the different dissemination actions, HiCLIP helped practitioners and academics realize a dichotomy in which wider administrative sectors increasingly recognize the role of cultural heritage in climate action. Yet, heritage knowledge and expertise are limited to technical considerations in mitigation actions. Even with acknowledging cultural resources in visions for sustainable climate action, the lack of attribution of responsibilities for CR makes their full integration unlikely. Thus, there is an urgent need for more explicit inclusion of types of cultural heritage and the parallel identification of relevant stakeholders to ensure the implementation of integrated actions. The transversality of culture for sustainable climate action is visible in seventeen actions featured in the HiCLIP report. These represent examples and can also be seen as the inspiration for starting points in some governments. HiCLIP provided entry points for the cultural heritage sector to enhance their sectorial agency in managing the built environment while considering intangible elements of cultural resources to create meaningful partnerships across governmental sectors and disciplinary silos. The project’s impact has been and will continue to focus on stimulating people concerned with managing cultural resources to activate their agency to actively increase collaborations among sectors for more coherent and meaningful climate actions that mainstream the cultural sector. HiCLIP supports the culture sector to take a proactive role in bringing their knowledge and expertise to coherently support climate sustainability by questioning the role of the sector and industries in unsustainable consumption patterns or widening the identification of cultural values in different contexts. The HiCLIP report further indicates entry points for transcending cognitive biases in sectorized planning. This shifts the role of cultural heritage practitioners to realize the unsustainability in their daily practice and shifts current paradigms to transform practical gaps towards sustainable pathways.

HiCLIP's premise is that a wider spectrum of engagement of cultural aspects, particularly cultural heritage, is possible and necessary if societies are to develop sustainable climate actions that contribute to social justice and environmental integrity. HiCLIP rationale is based on understanding cultural heritage under the umbrella of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the transversal dimension of culture to drive paradigm shifts. Thus, the absence of a strong social and cultural liaison in climate planning risks perpetuating unsustainable patterns and dynamics yet disguised under the flagship of climate change responses. HiCLIP recognizes that the inclusion of socio-cultural resources throughout different SDGs highlights a dichotomy between current remits of institutional, cultural heritage sectors (primarily focused on managing monuments and cultural landscapes of national interests) and the need to sustain broader and more intrinsic cultural and heritage elements such as local identity and community values. Considering the disciplinary challenges that current governance mechanisms for climate and cultural heritage management face to achieve coordinated action, HiCLIP addresses the need for interdisciplinary knowledge and cooperation to operationalise the socio-cultural dimension. NIKU coordinates HiCLIP activities through an outreach platform built upon academic, decision-makers and practitioner networks that creates a beneficial cycle that impact research, policy guidance and capacity building. Our outputs include a scientific report on the mainstreaming of culture and heritage in climate plans that NIKU will present at the 2021 UN Climate Change Summit (COP26), among other culture-based climate action tools and policy solutions for breaking down barriers to engagement on climate by cultural actors. HiCLIP is advocates for cultural heritage as an indicator for local-based solutions for the implementation of the 2030 Sustainability Agenda.

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MILUTARENA-Formidlings- og koordineringstiltak knyttet for miljø- og utviklingsforskning