G20: webinar cycle on the protection of cultural heritage kicks off

The Director of UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre will be chairing one of the events of the G20 Culture Webinars “Addressing the climate crisis through culture”, session II on “Strategies and Actions for Increased resilience of Cultural Heritage” will take place on 12 April 2021, 13h20 to 14h25. The event will be accessible via livestream through the YouTube channel of the Italian Ministry of Culture.

The webinar will provide the latest evidence on climate change scenarios and their likely impacts on cultural heritage through possible adverse events. The discussion will then review cultural heritage more at risk, at various scales, for possible scenarios considered. Policymakers will receive information as to quantitative evidence and levels of vulnerability of heritage at risk due to climate change, also through specific analytical tools.

Case studies will subsequently be presented regarding key steps of a possible coordinated strategy at the G20 level addressing objects and collections, buildings and sites, archaeology, intangible heritage and cultural landscapes: prevention and protection approaches, and adoption of appropriate initiatives; emergency response strategies in the case of unexpected disruptive events; cultural heritage as a driver and enabler of transformative climate action, and smart technological solutions to address both issues, as well as to implement long-term sustainability strategies for endangered heritage. As to prevention and protection, the webinar will cover the main areas of intervention as emerging from current best practices: monitoring, conservation, planned maintenance, and energy-saving, to list some major ones.

The objective of the multi-stakeholder webinar with international experts is to identify common points for policy design and action for consideration by G20 countries in the relevant fora, notably the G20 culture working group and Ministerial.