Climate crisis is the biggest challenge the planet is facing today. It has been scientifically proven that humans have greatly contributed to the climate change phenomenon. Changing weather patterns not only affect the built fabric of the heritage sites but also have indirect consequences like fragmentations of populations, intangible values being lost, visitor numbers being reduced, and socio-economic activities being hampered. Climate change is likely to affect cultural diversity and socio-cultural interactions and result in the loss of social community, traditional knowledge, cultural identity or natural and socio-economic systems resulting in endangered cultural heritage sites.

The assessment of the impacts of climate change on cultural heritage must thus take into consideration the linkages within and between natural, cultural and social aspects in the context of the heritage values. The combination of climate crisis and socio-economic changes will have a greater possible impact on the conservation of cultural heritage than climate change alone.

Climate change is one of the critical and immediate concerns regarding built heritage and historic precincts. These require immediate attention considering the scalability and the level of impact. The conservation practice has evolved over a period of time addressing diverse kinds of challenges associated or interlinked, proliferating urban development and changing climate. Today, India needs to establish platforms to collaborate and create a symbiotic field of expertise to craft a holistic understanding of the built environment, ecology and people. Mainstreaming climate change and sustainability within conservation practice is the need of the hour and important to safeguard the historic places from upcoming natural and man-made challenges.

Culture in Crisis: Heritage & Climate change online workshop in collaboration with INTACH heritage academy. 17-21 August 2021. The workshop includes Industry experts talking about climate change and its effect on cultural heritage, international and national case studies, policy, disaster preparedness, and nature-culture linkages in heritage.