Historic Turning Point: Culture & Heritage Claim Their Place in Global Climate Adaptation Policy at COP30

Tired Earth

By The Editorial Board

While imperfect, the COP30 outcome represents an unprecedented operationalization of culture and heritage in international climate policy and reflects five years of sustained work by culture and heritage colleagues going back to COP26.

Andrew Potts, a lawyer and climate-heritage policy expert who has focused on the intersection of culture and climate change, says:

Dear Culture and Heritage Colleague,

Two years ago, we began our journey together as the Heritage Adapts to Climate Alliance. For decades, culture and heritage have been excluded from climate adaptation policy and finance, undermining our collective work to scale up efforts to protect them from climate risks. The Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) Framework adopted in December 2023 at COP28 offered a breakthrough by recognizing heritage sites and cultural practices as a core adaptation thematic.

We felt that, with work, this unprecedented valorization of culture in adaptation policy could be leverage to open pathways to climate finance and access to climate decision-making for those leading efforts to adapt culture and heritage at local level. HACA was launched to do that work; to turn this potential into reality through strong engagement in GGA implementation, including the UN’s two-year UAE–Belém Work Program on adaptation indicators.

On Saturday afternoon BST, 21 November 2025, COP30 in Belém fulfilled the expectations set at COP 28 by adopting the CMA6 Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA) decision, including indicators to measure progress on adapting heritage sites and cultural practices.

The decision was contentious. The night before, the COP30 Presidency cut the indicator package from 100 to 59, deleting and rewriting many expert recommendations; cultural heritage indicators fell from 8 to 5. New indicator texts were released only at 3 a.m., leaving no time to address flaws and weakening the package’s coherence.

Several delegations, including the EU, said the rewritten indicators were unclear and unusable. Despite objections and a suspended closing plenary, the Presidency pushed the package through and asked SBSTA and SBI to “work further” on these issues at their Bonn SB64 sessions in June 2026 (and thereafter at COP31 in Antalya, Turkey) — it remains unclear whether that review will extend beyond metadata and methodologies to revising indicator text.

Special thanks are owed to HACA members on the ground in Belem who advocated on behalf of culture and heritage, including Darius Ankamah (Climate Heritage Network), Scott Heron (UNESCO Chair on Climate Change Vulnerability of Natural and Cultural Heritage), Ave Paulus (ICOMOS), and Meredith Wiggins (World Monuments Fund). We also acknowledge the leadership of CHN Special Envoy HRH Princess Dana Firas of Jordan, Chair of the Petra National Trust.

To seize this momentum, the Heritage Adapts! Coalition Steering Group announced at COP30 the launch in 2026 of the Heritage Adapts! 3000 x 2030 Campaign — a bold global effort to ensure at least 3,000 heritage sites and cultural practices implement adaptive strategies by 2030. Backed by a first-of-its-kind online Community of Action, the campaign will democratize adaptation knowledge, expand access to climate data, and connect custodians across borders in a shared fight for resilience.

In the comings days HACA members will receive more information on how they can join the Heritage Adapts! Campaign.

👉 The message from Belém is clear: protecting heritage is not just about preserving the past — it is about securing our collective future. But in many ways the work is only beginning. You can read the entire HACA and Heritage Adapts! Media Release on COP30 as well as our regular COP30 updates on the HACA Circle Platform.

With thanks and gratitude,

For the HACA Team at Preserving Legacies,

Andrew