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🌟

1st CGST Draft – Preliminary Public Copy (2).pdf – Google Drive

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.

Focal Point Ave Paulus represented ICOMOS CAWG throughout the event, contributing policy task team collective input to drafting the document (including articles 1, 45, and 151, in addition to comments and additions to many more) and introducing Heritage Adapts! Campaign as well as speak about GFCBA campaign and Heritage Now! campaign as part of the COP30 5 plans to accelerate culture-based solutions mentioned in draft 1 Art 66 and further.

Grounded in the Paris Agreement and inspired by the Global Stocktake, the CGST recognises 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