A/75/298 Heritage Network in Edinburgh in 2019. She carried out missions to countries facing particularly difficult climate impacts, such as Maldives and Tuvalu. She also distributed a related questionnaire in April 2020. She was gratified to receive a number of responses, which are available on the website of the Special Rapporteur. 42 Additionally, she was pleased to consult experts around the world. She thanks all contributors. The report should be read in conjunction with its annex. 43 II. International legal framework 23. The relevant international legal frameworks are covered in the annex owing to a word limit. III. Negative impacts of climate change on culture, cultural heritage and cultural rights 24. The climate emergency is the greatest of many contemporary threats to cultur es and cultural rights around the world. The damage that it can and will do is fast growing, widespread, long-term and potentially existential. It can wipe out centuries of human cultural achievement and render ongoing cultural practices virtually impossible in the future. Climate change impacts pose a threat to meaningful spaces for cultural interactions, including natural spaces, 44 and to the continuity of ways of life. 25. Imagine the cultural site or practice most precious to you wiped out by climate change. Consider the prospect of losing nearly all of your people ’s cultural achievements. Many in the world today face these stark realities. Now, think what it would mean to know that this is happening owing to choices made far away about which you were never consulted and owing to the abject failure of Governments, corporations and your fellow human beings to act when they knew very well that this was likely to happen. That is what we must contemplate. Inventorying ongoing and expected cultural losses should help us better understand what is at stake, further motivate us to change our cultures and take necessary, sometimes difficult, action to mitigate these harms and force us to think now about how we adapt culturally going forward. 26. Taking seriously the climate-cultural rights nexus also requires a transnational approach committed to climate culture justice, as those most affected by climate change and who have often done the least to contribute to it have fewer resources to protect their cultures from its effects. This could result in a terrible climate culture apartheid, and a catastrophic “editing” process, in which much of the history and cultural traces of the biggest victims of climate change are allowed to disappear while the traces of those most responsible for it are more protected and more likely to survive. This is unacceptable and a clear violation of the spirit of the Charter of the United Nations itself. We cannot be passive observers of cultural extinction. International cooperation, information-sharing, solidarity and funding, partnered with local empowerment and participation, are essential to ensure that this does not occur. 27. There are myriad negative impacts across many areas of cultural life, only some of which can be surveyed here, complemented by selected examples in the annex. Particular attention will be paid to cultural heritage, which has been more widely addressed than other aspects, including in submissions. One of the challenges is to __________________ 42 43 44 8/23 www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/CulturalRights/Pages/ClimateChange.aspx. www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/CulturalRights/Pages/AnnualReports.aspx. See A/74/255. 20-10595