Apr 01 2026
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First draft of Culture Global Stocktake for Climate Action makes a strong statement on the role of cultural heritage

By Ave Paulus

After months of global consultations, collaboration, and collective drafting… the first draft of the Culture Global Stocktake for Climate Action (CGST) is delivered🌟

This milestone was achieved at the conclusion of the Marrakech Partnership Accelerator, which brought together 50+ delegates from around the world in Morocco for a week of dialogue, exchange, and co-creation, with the participation of the COP30 Presidency and the UNFCCC Secretariat.

Grounded in the Paris Agreement and inspired by the Global Stocktake, the CGST recognizes culture not simply as a sector, but as a foundational, cross-cutting dimension of climate action, shaping how societies understand, respond to, and transform in the face of climate change.

It brings together cultural rights, knowledge systems, heritage, and creative expression as essential to advancing mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and public engagement, while emphasizing the role of culture in enabling inclusive, participatory, and cooperative climate action across all levels of society.

The first draft also highlights a critical gap: the need to systematically integrate cultural dimensions into climate governance frameworks, including the Global Stocktake, SDGs, and national climate strategies.

This is a first step toward positioning culture as both a driver and enabler of climate action—and toward ensuring it is embedded as a systemic lever in the implementation of the Paris Agreement.

We invite Parties and Non-Party Stakeholders to review, share, and submit inputs ahead of Draft 2 which will be presented at SB64 in Bonn.

🔗 cultureglobalstocktake.com
hashtag#CultureGlobalStocktake

📸 Photo credit: @farhathmysha @siddiqui_media

ICOMOS CAWG has been involved in the drafting process and is active in the follow-up actions:

  • submitting feedback and written inputs on the first draft
  • preparations to host non-party stakeholder consultations

ICOMOS CAWG contact: ave.paulus@icomos.org

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