Accounting for non-economic loss: climate displacement and the meaningful omission of the intangible

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article considers the relationship between cultural and climate policy. Specifically, it examines recent challenges in scholarly and policy efforts to conceptualize intangible heritage as an instance of non-economic loss resulting from climate-induced displacement. Illustrating the problem with cases from Latin America and the Caribbean, it surveys how international climate policy has come to adopt a loss and damage framework to address the costs of displacement. It goes on to focus upon cultural heritage as a frequently cited example of non-economic loss, first reviewing the evolution of heritage policy and then identifying a persistent inability to distinguish so-called intangible from tangible heritage. The article shows how a frequent tendency to treat intangible heritage as contingent upon and circumscribed by its tangible counterpart undermines efforts to come to terms with non-economic loss. Finally, it demonstrates how this conceptual fallacy is being carried over to scholarship and policy addressing climate-induced non-economic loss and highlights a need to better theorize the intangible dimensions of such loss.