22 being experienced disproportionately by the countries that contributed least to causing it – making them poorer and even more vulnerable. This clash of interests played out at COP26 where least developed nations demanded a new financing facility for loss and damage as matter of climate justice. Industrialised countries refused and the final COP26 text called merely for a “dialogue” to discuss “arrangements.” Small island nations vowed to return to COP27 in Egypt in November 2022 to press their demands. Culture and heritage modulate the recognition, identification, and valuation of the scope and scale of losses and damages in complex ways. The possibility of valuing losses and damages to culture and heritage themselves has important implications for the legal and political Loss and Damage debate. The experience of losses and damages of cultural resources may intersect not only with the recognition of loss but also with human agency to respond to loss, influencing the measurers adopted to cope and rebuild. Despite the growing centrality of the loss and damage topic, correlations between it and culture and heritage are under-explored, making the spotlighting of loss and damage in the Three Key Questions debate particularly welcome. Several dimensions of this complex topic stand out. Equity, justice, and inclusive decision-making also come across strongly in the discussion of loss and damage and culture and heritage. As discussed in the debate, priorities must be established to determine which sites can be protected in situ and those in which alternate forms of documentation or memorialisation should be carried out. As The Future of Our Pasts notes, there is a danger that climate action may be undertaken in ways that perpetuate existing inequalities. There is also danger that climate impacts and response may be overly “expert/ scientific-driven” choices, imposed upon communities. Where loss is inevitable, anchor points for cultural memory must be found and new cultural techniques for living with and learning from loss deployed. Another issue the debate raises is the need to better link heritage safeguarding (i.e. resisting loss and damage) to action on decarbonisation. Greater rates of global warming mean greater rates of loss and damage to culture and heritage. Climate science tells us that most adaptation needs will be lower with global warming of 1.5°C compared to 2°C. In situ conservation of many heritage places will simply not be possible at higher rates of warming. The current draft of the new UNESCO World Heritage Policy on climate change makes this connection when it provides:
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