COP26

Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention on Climate Change
31st October -12th November, Glasgow. 

Don’t miss the incredible lineup of conversations, events, exhibitions, and resources available online and in-person for all of us working in the cultural sector.

Link to COP Green Zone Program of Events

Link to Culture at COP

Link to Nature Bar - and live podcast created through a collaboration of Voice for Nature and Natural History Museum, at the New York Times Nature Hub.

Read the new piece written for MCCN on the Climate Museum’s ‘Low Relief for High Water’ and ‘Beyond Lies ‘ by Hasmukh Chand (Sydney): ’The Climate Museum - Climate Change advocacy during the Critical Decade’ under Sharing Stories on this site.

Reimagining Museums for Climate Action exhibition

June 2021- throughout COP, Glasgow Science Centre

So far, the exhibition has been seen by c.60k people.

During COP26, 3,000 tickets will be available each day for members of the public to visit the Glasgow Science Centre. As part of the official Green Zone, the exhibition will also be open to delegates to COP26 itself.

Reimagining Museums for Climate Action at COP26

During the time of COP, the Reimagining Museums for Climate Action (RMCA) team encourages anyone who is there to take maximum advantage of the exhibition. They are working with a team of volunteers who will be present each day to help animate and engage audiences with the exhibition, on level 2 of the Glasgow Science Centre. Rodney Harrison and Henry McGhie will be at COP for the full two weeks.

Event 11 Nov 11am-1pm (GMT)
'Powering Climate Action Through Heritage policies, organisations, research and public programs'

They will present the project in an online conversation in the Blue Zone in the EU pavilion, along with a number of heritage sector organisations. This will take place at 4 pm UK time on the 11th November.
[Link: https://charter-alliance.eu/charter-events/powering-climate-action-through-heritage-policies-organisations-research-and-public-programmes/]

The RMCA team will be running a two-hour-long drop-in event in the UKRI booth on the ground floor of Glasgow Science Centre on Sunday 7 November, 11 am-1 pm GMT, drawing on the RMCA concept.

RMCA will feature in the Digital Green Zone, to be hosted on Google Culture, and launching on 31 October. The aim of the Digital Green Zone is to provide enhanced virtual access to public-facing exhibits and events which will take place in person in Glasgow during the time of COP26.

Conference presentations

RMCA has been talking about the project quite widely at a number of different conferences and events over the past months, these include Ban Ki-Moon Centre for Global Citizens event on art and climate, Oslo Forum on heritage in a changing climate and ICOM DEMHIST (historic house museums committee of ICOM) annual conference.

They will contribute to the ICOM Science and Technology Museums (CIMUSET) conference on 7th November (online), and we will be running an invited plenary panel presentation at the UK Museums Association conference on 9th November (online, it is during the time of COP), including contributions from Walter Lowande’s Existances team, Emma Woodham at the Glasgow Science Centre, and Miranda Massie (Climate Museum New York City).

BOOKs

Reimagining Museums for Climate Action (BOOK) &
Mobilising Museums for Climate Action: Tools, frameworks and opportunities to accelerate climate action in and with museums (practical toolbox)

In addition to the exhibition, a book has been developed, edited by Rodney Harrison and Colin Sterling. This includes a range of contributions, from exhibitors, additional concepts from the competition and website, contributions from the exhibition judges and partners, and some additional contributions from people and organisations working on climate change and museums. They aim to launch the Reimagining Museums for Climate Action book on the 1st of November, at the beginning of the first week of COP26. It will be available as an open-access e-book, for free download here. They will also be printing a small print run of hard copies of the book, to distribute to contributors to the project and exhibition.

In addition to the book, A practical toolbox of frameworks, tools and opportunities for global museums (of all forms and sizes) to connect their work with climate action (“Mobilising Museums for Climate Action: Tools, frameworks and opportunities to accelerate climate action in and with museums” written by Henry McGhie) will also be launched on 8th November, at the beginning of the second week of COP26. This will be available for free download here.

Public activities

The design challenge to reimagine museums for climate action has been modified, in partnership with Glasgow Science Centre, and is on its public website to encourage more people to make use of the idea, check out a detailed link here. Please feel free to share this with your contacts.

Social media

The @ClimateMuseums account tweets and retweets relevant activities. Please tag them and/or use the hashtag #ClimateMuseums.

Culture: the missing link - Report & events

julie’s bicycle, UK

The Culture: The Missing Link to Climate Action Summary Report has now been launched and can be found and downloaded from our website here. The English language versions of the international roundtable reports can be found here. The translated versions into Spanish, Turkish and Indonesian will be published soon. Julie’s Bicycle invite you to please share these widely and use them to inform your work and campaigns.

Julie’s Bicycle are continuing to profile their Culture: The Missing Link research through a series of events, the final event took place at COP26, in the Green Zone on 5th November, 10 - 11:30 am (BST). View the event here. [https://juliesbicycle.com/event/culture-the-missing-link/ ]

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