The role of Museums for the protection of cultural heritage in the era of climate crisis

Museums constitute a global infrastructure, with more than 55,000 worldwide, reaching many millions of visitors each year, and supporting public awareness, research and knowledge production with their prestige.

In the era of climate crisis, museums cannot remain neutral. On the contrary, they must function as centers of information and awareness, at the same time exploiting their comparative advantages: the trust of their public, the possibility to connect climate change with issues that they deal within their own exhibitions and collections, their relationship with local communities, their ability to present complex concepts in an understandable way, and finally their privileged position as convergence nodes of the performing arts.

The work will highlight the new role of museums in the era of the climate crisis, that is, the beacon of reliable information about a major global problem, through an exhibition on climate change, specially designed to be hosted in museums that are not thematically oriented in climate change and the environment, "an exhibition within an exhibition". In particular, the methodology, conditions, orientation and structure of the exhibition will be presented, including the museological approach and its distinctive elements, namely, how to introduce the elements of time and space as related to climate change. An innovative element for the design of the exhibition is the formulation of a targeted quantitative audience survey, which collected the expectations of the citizens for a exhibition on climate change.