Context 164 - May 2020

Editor Rob Cowan Editorial Coordinator Michael Taylor, ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com Editorial Board Tom Copp Nigel Crowe Peter de Figueiredo (book reviews) Rebecca Madgin Andrew McClelland Fiona Newton Louise Priestman Gordon Sorensen Jonathan Taylor Michael Taylor (chair) Cartoons by Rob Cowan Context is distributed to all members of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation. © Institute of Historic Building Conservation 2020 ISSN 0958-2746 Publisher Cathedral Communications Limited, High Street, Tisbury,Wiltshire, England SP3 6HA 01747 871717 context@cathcomm.co.uk www.buildingconservation.com Non-member subscriptions to Context Context is available to corporate bodies at an annual subscription rate, including postage, of: United Kingdom £60.00 Elsewhere £90.00 Context on-line archive Past issues of Context can be viewed on the IHBC website. The archive provides a searchable database and reference for key articles. See www.ihbc.org.uk/page55/ context_archive. The views expressed in Context are not necessarily held by the IHBC or the publisher. Neither the publisher nor the IHBC shall be under any liability whatsoever in respect of contributed articles. We gratefully acknowledge the support of firms whose advertisements appear throughout this publication.While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this issue of Context is current and correct, neither the IHBC nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions which may occur. Context themes and copy deadlines Context is normally published five times a year, in March, May, July, September and November. Due to the postponement of the IHBC Annual School in Brighton, the September issue of Context , which would have reported it, will not appear.The next two themes and copy deadlines are: Food and Drink , August, issue 165 (12 June) Oxford , November , issue 166 (11 September) Please contact Michael Taylor at ihbceditorialboard@gmail.com to discuss any editorial submissions or for information about the Context editorial board. 2 C O N T E X T 1 6 4 : M A Y 2 0 2 0 Briefing John Preston writes: COP 26, the UN Climate Change Conference (see ‘Climate change update’, Context 163, March 2020), which was to have been held in Glasgow in November, has been postponed due to COVID-19. But there have been some promising signs. The Trump administration may have turned its back on the Paris Climate Change Agreement, but there is a groundswell of countries and US states (evident in the Climate Heritage Network) working together for change. Sir David King, former government chief scientific adviser, noted on the Today programme that COP 26 was the cue to review states parties’ progress in implementing the Paris Agreement. Now is the time and the opportunity to hold the UK government to account in relation to its own approach. As I write, today’s Guardian highlights a complaint to the OECD in relation to UK subsidies for overseas fossil- fuel developments; there is surely a basis for a similar challenge in relation to the UK’s failure to learn (as required by Article 7 (e) of the Paris Agreement, see Context 163) from the catalogue of past failures in relation to adaptation actions. How many Context readers have engaged with their MP on these issues, and who has managed to get a positive or helpful response? There may be scope for raising the issues via the new all-party parliamentary group mentioned in Director’s Cut in Context 163, and with the newly-launched cross- party Peers for the Planet group. Peers for the Planet, with groups of school and university students, featured in an inspiring ‘Let’s hear it from the young people’ session at Futurebuild in March.Young people are impatient for radical change by 2030; look out for ‘Teach the future’ initiatives in schools. There is both a challenge and a massive opportunity for the heritage sector, as noted when I presented for the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA), along with Heritage Declares, to a recent meeting of the Joint Committee of National Amenity Societies. How can we (and I mean every Context reader) engage with young people and enthuse them about the historic environment, in the The retrofit of Levens Hall in Cumbria included a biomass district heating scheme (Photo: Historic England)