CIMAM joins the Climate Heritage Network

• CIMAM is proud to announce its membership in the CHN (Climate Heritage Network), a global platform of organizations committed to mobilizing arts, culture, and heritage to address climate change and support communities.
• CIMAM strives to meet our international members' diverse needs, who carry out their museum activities in different socio-political and economic contexts. Therefore, CIMAM aims to provide practical solutions that promote more sustainable museum practices.

With its recent membership in the CHN, CIMAM aims to expand its knowledge and network to serve its members better. Through this global platform, CIMAM will collaborate with other organizations and communities to address the challenges posed by climate change and protect cultural heritage. This will enable CIMAM to support its members' efforts to create more sustainable museum practices and contribute to the broader global effort to address climate change.

In this way, CIMAM hopes to support its members in their efforts to create more sustainable museum practices and contribute to the broader global effort to address climate change.

According to a recent press release issued on April 4th by the Climate Heritage Network, announcing the membership of 92 organizations, including CIMAM, Shanon Miller, the co-chair of CHN and the director of the City of San Antonio's Historic Preservation Office, stated:

"This is the largest and most diverse group of new members the CHN has ever welcomed. It reflects the growing consensus that, to tackle climate change, we must unleash the power of culture, from the arts to heritage, to help people imagine and realize low-carbon, just and climate-resilient futures."

The Climate Heritage Network was launched in October 2019 in Edinburgh, UK, by organizations worldwide seeking to mobilize arts, culture and heritage for climate action. The founding members shared a common concern that the power of culture to drive transformative climate action was not being fully harnessed and a recognition that business-as-usual leads to an ever-warming globe with catastrophic consequences for the planet, its people and their cultures and heritage.

The CHN aims to unleash the potential of culture by connecting cultural voices with each other and with partners from diverse artistic mediums, regional scales and economic sectors. According to their press release, CHN's new members reflect this diversity. They include national, regional and local government agencies; universities and research organizations; cultural institutions; NGOs and civil society; and businesses, artists and design professionals.

Climate change is a global phenomenon. The 92 new members are drawn from all five of the CHN’s regions: Africa and the Arab States, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and North America. The CHN works to promote solidarity with communities on the frontlines of climate change. New CHN members hail from dozens of countries, ranging from Argentina and Bangladesh to Italy and Iraq; New Zealand and Nigeria to Turkey and the United States.

Last year the CHN launched its new Action Plan for 2022-24. The Plan is based on a Theory of Change which posits that culture – from arts to heritage – enables transformative climate action by empowering people to imagine and realise low-carbon, just, climate resilient futures.

In November at the 2022 UN Climate Conference, COP27, the parties to the UN Climate Convention acknowledged the critical linkages between culture, heritage and climate change by including these themes in decisions they took and programs they launched addressing loss and damage, climate adaptation, and climate action in cities and urban areas. 2023 will see CHN members working to build on these successes.