Intervención del ministro Miquel Iceta en la Conferencia Euromediterránea de ministros de Cultura

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

We have been talking about climate change for years. A term we have now changed to climate crisis, which is much more in line with a phenomenon that is profoundly affecting all our societies and, putting heritage, culture and traditional ways of life at risk. It does not seem exaggerate to say that the crisis is becoming, as scientists are already warning, a climate catastrophe that we are almost late to face: we must act immediately.

From the point of view of culture, we must address this situation from a twofold perspective: identifying actions to protect heritage in the most effective way, and using culture, tangible and intangible heritage as valuable tools in the fight against the crisis. As the 2030 Agenda points out, culture is a driver of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.

In Spain we are implementing the National Plan for Adaptation to Climate Change 2021-2030, and working intensively on actions to tackle the climate crisis through the National Cultural Heritage Plans, shared by administrations, public entities and private institutions. These are actions that assess the risk situation and the state of each type of cultural heritage. The aim is to prevent risks affecting cultural heritage, including historic buildings, archaeological sites, works of art, as well as intangible cultural and natural heritage, gardens or cultural landscapes.

But the most outstanding action is the impulse given by the Spanish Government to the "Green Book for a sustainable heritage management", with the creation of a workgroup in which all institutions related to the cultural heritage in Spain are represented.

The aim of this workgroup is to provide the sector with a set of tools and recommendations that enable the management of cultural heritage to favour the sustainable development of territories through social participation, universal accessibility, and digitalisation, and thus contribute to economic efficiency, environmental conservation, and social equity.

The tools, lessons and recommendations contained in the Green Book will be available to all stakeholders, and we hope that they can contribute to a collective work, at European and Mediterranean level, in favour of common policies on sustainable heritage management.

Ladies and gentlemen, culture can make a substantial contribution to finding solutions to the climate crisis, and to territorial and demographic development policies. That is why in Spain we have deployed a series of programmes promoting innovation and cultural entrepreneurship in rural areas, financing projects that, in addition to modernising the sector through sustainable management, reuse cultural infrastructures, thus contributing to fulfilling the commitments of the Paris Agreement and the principles of the New European Bauhaus.

All these projects also seek full equality between women and men, and respect for the diversity of local communities. It is a firm commitment to fight the phenomenon of rural depopulation and the excessive displacement of the population to the cities, developing a strategy aimed at the protection, promotion and sustainability of our Cultural Heritage.