Evolving climate change policy and museums

ABSTRACT

This brief covers international climate change policies and actions spanning the last 30 years, and traces how they relate to museums’ activities. It also presents opportunities for museums to incorporate climate change into their work in order to accelerate their contributions to climate action. Estimates of the number of museums range from 55,000 to 80,000. Collectively, they have the potential to make a greater contribution to climate action than a small country, both through educational and research programmes, and through their use of resources. As institutions concerned with heritage, museums have key roles to play in addressing the defining challenge of our time, as well as an obligation to society to deliver on those roles.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate
• climate change
• museum
• sustainability

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to all the museum workers, researchers, and museum networks who contributed their views towards submissions I made to the UN in 2018 and 2020. I am very grateful to Adriana Valenzuela (formerly UN Climate Change, now Global Center on Adaptation, Rotterdam) for ongoing collaboration, and to the Education, Outreach and Communication Stakeholders group, which supports innovative climate education, engagement and action.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Henry McGhie has a background as an ecologist, museum curator and senior manager. He runs the UK-based consultancy Curating Tomorrow, which supports museums and their partners to advance their contributions to sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals, climate action and biodiversity conservation. He is a member of the International Council of Museums Sustainability Working Group, International Union for the Conservation of Nature Commission on Education and Communication, and UN Climate Change Education, Communication and Outreach Stakeholders.

Notes

1 Further information on early developments of international climate change agreements can be found at the Audiovisual Library of International Law, available at https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/ccc/ccc.html.