A/75/298
B.
Recommendations
81. To implement cultural rights and safeguard culture and cultural heritage
in the face of the climate emergency, States and other relevant actors, including
international organizations, environmental bodies, businesses and experts
should urgently:
(a) Adopt a human rights-based global action plan to save the cultures of
humanity and protect cultural rights from the climate emergency, a plan that is
globally coordinated and resourced, but driven by local priorities and concerns,
with adequate funding, monitoring and follow-up;
(b) Prioritize the need for an especially urgent, effective and concerted
global effort to prevent the cultural extinction of populations facing particular
threats from the climate emergency, such as those in polar and coastal regions,
including indigenous peoples and those living in small island States;
(c) Take cultural rights and cultural impacts into consideration in
responding to all aspects of climate change and in climate action;
(d) Include harm to culture, cultural heritage and cultural rights in any
inventory of harms resulting from or likely to result from climate change, or
from mitigation and adaptation actions, as well as in all environmental impact
and climate vulnerability assessments and in policy responses at all levels;
(e) Conduct more analysis and documentation of past, ongoing and
expected damage to cultures, cultural heritage and cultural rights from climate
change, including about underexplored topics such as intangible heritage;
(f) Embrace and leverage the role of data in measuring climate changeinduced destruction of all forms of culture and cultural heritage, and in
protecting and restoring culture and cultural heritage following such damage;
(g) Design appropriate measures for monitoring the impacts of climate
change on cultural heritage and adapting to the adverse consequences thereof;
and consider adaptations such as comprehensively recording and digitizing
culture and cultural heritage and providing adequate funding and technical
cooperation;
(h) Develop effective strategies for communicating to the public about
climate-related threats to culture, cultural heritage and cultural rights and their
importance in effective climate action;
(i) Fully explore the potential of culture and cultural heritage and
traditional, indigenous and local knowledge to enhance mitigation and
adaptation efforts; and promote awareness of and respect for rights-respecting
traditional knowledge, including its importance in responding to the climate
emergency;
(j) Ensure that scientific knowledge about climate change, including its
impacts on culture, is made accessible, including in local and indigenous
languages and non-verbal modes of communication, and widely available;
(k) Promote and support cultural expressions around climate change and
its effects;
(l) Respect and ensure the rights of cultural rights defenders, indigenous
human rights defenders and environmental human rights defenders working on
issues related to climate change; and support and promote their work;
20-10595
21/23