COP26 in Glasgow saw Scotland take centre-stage for crucial international climate negotiations. For Historic Environment Scotland (HES), it was an important opportunity to demonstrate just how the historic environment is part of the solution to tackling the climate emergency.
HES was involved in over 45 different activities throughout COP26, including 7 Blue Zone events – ranging from Heritage and Resilience for Coastal Communities, to International Cultural Heritage, Adaptation and Reslience.
With the eyes of the world on Glasgow, we held a mini programme of events at Glasgow Cathedral. This included conservation tours of the site, and traditional skills taster sessions for schools which were attended by 100 pupils.
Partnership working was a principle of the HES programme, and throughout COP we worked with over 90 organisations. This included joining forces with other UK heritage agencies to explore ways to face the shared challenge of climate change at the Climate Resilience Heritage summit, a panel discussion with tourism partners focusing on responsible and sustainable tourism, and the mobilisation of Scotland’s culture bodies to produce a new short film showcasing the overlooked potential of culture to tackle climate issues, Climate Action Needs Culture.
During COP26, we wanted the historic environment to inspire people to take climate action. As part of this, we worked with writer and presenter Ally Heather to explore legacy of Scotland’s industrial heritage and climate change in a new short film. We asked people of Scotland to help us tell the nation’s climate story with our Visions of Climate Heritage competition and online exhibition, the winners of which will be announced early next year. We also launched our new Climate Change Explorer app, allowing users to discover how climate change is impacting some of Edinburgh’s unique historic places.
COP26 was also an opportunity to demonstrate how crucial the reuse and retrofit of existing buildings will be to achieving net-zero. We published a new Guide to Energy Retrofit of Existing Buildings, and produced a video exploring the energy efficiency measures installed at Holyrood Lodge.
Looking to the future post-COP26, we published our first dedicated climate change adaptation plan, Climate Ready HES. This plan sets out the actions HES will take to prepare for and review the risks and impacts associated with climate change, as Scotland experiences more extremities in weather and continues on the journey to net-zero.