Climate.Culture.Peace

Time

13:00 CET

Climate.Culture.Peace is a knowledge-building initiative, aimed at exploring the interconnections between culture, climate change, peace and disaster resilience. It includes a 5-day virtual conference and a knowledge portal with a focus on heritage places and institutions, which are threatened by climate-related disasters and/or conflicts driven by environmental stresses. It will bring together diverse knowledge holders, policy advisors, practitioners, as well as community and youth leaders.

This initiative is generously supported by the British Council’s Cultural Protection Fund (CPF) in partnership with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and seeks the participation from all CPF target countries.

Why This Focus?

An existential threat to life on Earth, the climate crisis is widespread and intensifying. There has been a significant rise in heatwaves, droughts, wildfires, floods and cyclones, indicating our increasing vulnerability and exposure to disaster risk. The unprecedented rise in sea levels is threatening most coastal settlements – cities like Alexandria and Venice could disappear forever. Environmental stresses caused by climate change, contribute to food insecurity, displacement and unemployment, thereby feeding into the root causes of an existing conflict or giving rise to new tensions.

Climate change, therefore, must be seen as a complex problem that has intertwined social, cultural, environmental, and economic underpinnings. Culture fuels creativity and connection. Climate change has become one of the primary threats for culture. Culture and heritage shape our perceptions of, and responses to, climate change and the environmental variability it is bringing. But major global approaches are not yet recognizing the influence of culture and heritage on climate action.