The Global Stocktake's Culture Gap

What is the Global Stocktake?

The Global Stocktake (GST) is a five-yearly process established under the Paris Agreement, designed to check progress against the Paris goals and inform the next round of national climate pledges due in 2025, known as nationally-determined contributions (NDCs). In this way, the GST aims to set the direction for future work on climate action.

The COP28 Global Stocktake (GST) aimed to assess progress toward the Paris Agreement goals and shape future climate policy. A positive outcome was the GST’s historic call to transition away from fossil fuels, addressing a core cause of the climate crisis. However, fossil fuels are deeply rooted in specific socio-cultural systems - systems that the GST overlooks. By not addressing these cultural and social drivers of climate change, the Stocktake misses an essential factor for transformative action. This ‘Culture Gap’ risks limiting the GST's impact as a framework for more ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), underscoring the urgent need for a UNFCCC work plan focused on culture's role in climate solutions.

Read more about the Global Stocktake

Relevant paragraphs: The critical Mitigation chapter of the GST contains no references to socio-cultural enablers, culture, heritage, ancestral wisdom, traditional knowledge, values, or cosmovisions. Illustrative of this is GST Paragraph 8 which emphasises “that finance, capacity-building and technology transfer are critical enablers of climate action,” but excludes the socio-cultural enabler.

From COP27 to COP28, climate advocates raised concerns that the Global Stocktake (GST) was overlooking a crucial factor in climate action: the impact of socio-cultural, historical, and ethical aspects on progress. Research shows that transformative climate action needs more than technical solutions; it requires understanding the social systems and values driving or hindering change.

The UNFCCC’s GST synthesis report, released in September 2023, confirmed that the world is not on track to meet Paris Agreement goals. It briefly recommended “systems transformations,” “whole-of-society approaches,” and stronger “social enabling conditions.” Yet, when it came time to finalise, the GST omitted references to “social enablers,” limiting cultural aspects to “capacity building” - a reduction that weakens the GST’s effectiveness.

Indigenous Peoples, local communities, and researchers brought evidence to COP28, including ancestral knowledge and case studies, supporting the integration of cultural and social insights into climate policy. Without these socio-cultural anchors in the GST, advancing climate action rooted in culture, values, and ethics will be more challenging.

This gap underscores the urgent need for a Joint Work on Culture and Climate Action (JWD) [link to page] decision. The JWD would create a policy foundation for integrating cultural dimensions into UNFCCC climate strategies. With support from the Global Call to Put Cultural Heritage, Arts, and Creative Industries at the Heart of Climate Action and the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action [link to page], advocates are making the JWD a top goal for COP30.

‘Culture Gap’ in COP28 Global Stocktake Outcomes

Roadmap to Mission 1.5ºC

The COP28 Global Stocktake (GST) introduced Mission 1.5, a joint initiative led by COP28 (UAE), COP29 (Azerbaijan), and COP30 (Brazil) to boost international cooperation and raise ambition in climate commitments. The initiative aims to spur new, bold nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to maintain the 1.5°C climate goal within reach, calling for accelerated action during this critical decade.

The GST’s lack of any reference to socio-cultural enablers for climate action raises concerns about its effectiveness as a framework for ambitious NDCs. Addressing this Culture Gap in the GST will be vital. This gap could be tackled by a UNFCCC work plan on culture. Immediate action to integrate culture into the GST is essential to guide countries in preparing their NDCs for COP30.

The Roadmap to Mission 1.5 could bridge this gap, working with the Group of Friends of Culture-Based Climate Action at the UNFCCC and non-Party actors to incorporate socio-cultural dimensions into NDC guidance before COP30. While the GST's call to phase out fossil fuels is groundbreaking, its effectiveness depends on addressing the socio-cultural systems underpinning the fossil fuel economy.

CHN’s 2022-24 Action Plan states:

Historical and socio-economic forces like colonialism and globalism have spread ‘petrocultures’ and ‘carbonscapes’ across the earth. The heritage of the Anthropocene. The ideologies of extraction and exploitation of both people and nature have resulted in enduring inequity and injustice with consequences for lives and livelihoods both past and present. Culture-based approaches offer entry points to these critical questions, which must be addressed to avoid further conflict and damage.
On the other hand, traditional knowledge, heritage buildings, and landscapes that pre-date (or work independently of) the fossil fuel era can point the way to post-carbon living. The worldviews held by Indigenous Peoples and local communities never co-opted by modern take-make-waste approaches offer counterpoints to unsustainable paradigms of ‘progress.’ Artistic, creative, and imaginative tools support transformative reinterpretation of today’s carbonscapes and their accompanying mindsets. A new culture for the Novacene.

By failing to discuss the socio-cultural enablers of climate action, the GST ignores the ultimate root causes of the climate crisis and, crucially, their counterpoints. This GST socio-cultural gap is at odds with the science of 1.5 pathways and undermines the effectiveness of the GST’s historic call to transition away from fossil fuels – especially when coupled with the GST’s numerous loopholes and implied reliance on unproven & expensive technologies.

Putting cultural solutions at the heart of climate policy will address both those elements of culture that can help solve the climate crisis and those that have helped cause it. We must work to address the GST Culture Gap and ensure that the fossil fuel transition aligns with science, and is fair, funded and fast.