Heat Rising
Why Climate Risk Belongs in the Boardroom
On a morning in early August, seven Smithsonian museums on the National Mall closed their doors unexpectedly. The Castle, the Arts and Industries Building, the National Museum of the American Indian, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the National Museum of Asian Art, the National Museum of African Art, and the S. Dillon Ripley Center all went dark in a general power failure. Visitors to the National Mall who anticipated hours of education and entertainment found locked doors. Staff were sent home. Inside the shuttered galleries, some of the most important collections in the country were suddenly without badly needed temperature control during one of the most intense heatwaves recorded in the Mid-Atlantic region.
The cause was traced to a mechanical failure at a ninety-year-old power plant operated by the General Services Administration. [1] The power failure happened in an instant but the conditions for it took decades to accumulate, one deferred capital decision at a time.
The summer of 2026, reportedly the hottest on record, should give museum boards an unequivocal preview of what lies ahead. Climate preparedness belongs on every board agenda now, as a standing fiduciary responsibility held to the same standard as endowment investment oversight and the evaluation of the CEO.
A Season in Two Acts
Central Europe felt the impending “heat dome” first. In late June, as Paris sweltered, the Palais de Tokyo closed its exhibitions for a week. The Eiffel Tower, normally open late into the night, moved to a 4 p.m. close. Notre-Dame restricted access to its towers. The Musée Carnavalet kept a single space open to the public: its temporary exhibition gallery, the only room in the building with air conditioning. [2]
Two weeks later the heat returned. The Louvre, the most visited museum in the world, closed early from July 10 to 13. The historic building strains most in the late afternoon, when peak heat meets the day's heaviest crowds. [3] The Palais de Tokyo closed again, this time through July 15. [4]
The recurrence and frequency of heatwaves is the lesson here. Institutions that experience one extreme temperature event must now plan for the next one within the same season. In the United Kingdom, the sector launched Cool Off in Culture, a campaign directing the public to cultural venues as places to keep cool, along with a heat adaptation guide for venues struggling with overheating. [5]
Four Pressure Points
This summer's events impinge on four areas board members must be alert to.
Infrastructure. Building systems specified for a cooler climate are running at and beyond their limits. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning typically account for about 60 percent of a museum's energy use, and each hotter summer asks more of equipment near the end of its service life. [6] The Smithsonian's ninety-year-old plant is an extreme example of a common malaise.
Collections. Environmental stability is the foundation of collection care. Every hour a gallery or storage vault drifts outside its safe range adds risk to the works it holds, and the damage from a single failure can be permanent.
Visitors. This summer’s weather produced two findings that sit in tension. On the one hand, attendance fell at indoor and outdoor attractions alike, as extreme heat kept people at home. [7] On the other hand, cities from Madrid to Paris asked museums to serve as public refuges from extreme temperature. Management needs to plan for both scenarios: quiet galleries on some days and crowded ones on others, each with its own demands on staff, security, and building systems.
Staff. Staff bears the brunt of extreme temperatures directly, through longer shifts managing larger crowds, workspaces that grow hotter as systems strain, and commutes disrupted by heat. Retaining skilled teams depends on good working conditions, and good working conditions now depend on thoughtful planning to face exceptional climate developments.
Closer to Home
Over the past ten years, nearly one third of Chora’s clients have had to cope with a major climate event. Hurricanes have damaged buildings; floods have reached storage sites; rising sea levels have affected museums in coastal areas; and backup systems have failed at the moment they were needed most. The result is works of art have been damaged, institutions have closed without warning, and staff teams have carried on through difficult conditions.
Consider a composite drawn from that experience. A regional art museum's chief operating officer receives a call at two in the morning: a storm has cut the power, and the backup generator has failed to kick in. By sunrise, humidity in the lower-level storage vaults has climbed well past safe levels. In the weeks that follow, the board meets in emergency session, the insurance adjuster walks the galleries, and an exhibition two years in the making is postponed indefinitely. Looking back, the board chair recognizes that the crisis was shaped years earlier, in capital maintenance budgets that were trimmed and condition assessments that kept being deferred.
That story repeats across the museum sector with different details, and it will repeat more often.
The Governance Question
Boards hold the museum in trust for future generations. Permanence sits at the heart of that trust: the collection, the building that protects it, and the institution's capacity to serve its public year after year.
Climate risk has traditionally lived in management's operating domain, handled through facilities budgets and emergency plans. The scale of what is now at stake brings it squarely into the boardroom. An unplanned closure reaches the staff and the operating budget. A failed system reaches the collection. A damaged reputation reaches donors and the public. Each of these areas falls within the board's fiduciary responsibility.
The financial exposure is real. Many visitor attractions earn the bulk of their annual income in June, July, and August, the very months when heat now peaks. Sector readiness remains limited. A European Parliament briefing found that only three in ten museums had analyzed the climate impacts they are likely to face in the coming seasons. [8]
The principle at the center of our latest Trust at the Top Insight applies here directly. Boards trust management to run the building day to day, and they verify through regular reporting and independent assessment. Climate resilience calls for that same discipline. Management owns the plan, and the board asks for evidence that the plan matches the risk.
Three Questions for Your Next Board Meeting
Every board chair can open this conversation now.
When did we last commission an expert assessment of our building systems, and what did it tell us?
What would a two-week unplanned closure cost us in revenue, programs, and reputation?
Where does climate risk appear in our strategic plan, and who is accountable for it?
The answers will show a board exactly where it stands.
Coming Next
Heat Rising names the risk. The next Chora Insight turns to action, with a practical agenda for boards: creating, funding and protecting capital maintenance reserves, commissioning expert condition assessments, and building climate resilience into the strategic plan and the governance review. The summer of 2026 is behind us, and the next one is already on the calendar. Boards that act this budget season will be prepared to meet the rising heat.
Notes
[1] “Smithsonian Shuts 7 Museums as Cooling System Fails in DC Heat,” ArtWorld.Today, August 8, 2026. https://artworld.today/news/smithsonian-museums-cooling-failure-2026/
[2] “Too Hot for Art? Some Paris Museums and Landmarks Close or Reduce Hours Amid a Record Heat Wave in Europe,” United Cultures, June 26, 2026. https://www.unitedcultures.org/news/article/?id=11155
[3] “Heatwave: the Louvre Museum announces an early closure from July 10 to 13 inclusive,” Sortir à Paris, July 2026. https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/news/in-paris/articles/347929-heat-wave-the-louvre-museum-announces-an-early-closure-from-july-10-to-13-inclusive
[4] “Heat wave in Paris: the Palais de Tokyo closes until July 15,” Sortir à Paris, July 10, 2026. https://www.sortiraparis.com/en/what-to-visit-in-paris/exhibit-museum/articles/347778-paris-hit-by-a-heatwave-palais-de-tokyo-closes-until-july-15
[5] “Cooling off period: How did museums fare in their response to the heatwave?” Museums Journal, Museums Association, June 30, 2026. https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2026/06/cooling-off-period-how-did-museums-fare-in-their-response-to-the-heatwave/
[6] “Rising bills force museums across North America to rethink climate control guidelines,” The Art Newspaper, September 21, 2026. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/09/21/museums-across-north-america-rethink-climate-control-guidelines-amid-high-bills-and-large-carbon-footprints
[7] “Museums count cost of heatwaves as income and collections suffer,” Museums Journal, Museums Association, July 10, 2026. https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2026/07/new-challenges-museums-count-cost-of-heatwave-as-income-and-collections-suffer/
[8] “Museums, libraries and archives in the face of climate change challenges,” European Parliamentary Research Service, 2023. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/753970/EPRS_BRI(2023)753970_EN.pdf
