Climate Law and Governance Day 2026 | 13 Nov 2026

An online convening of international experts to increase ambition, harness knowledge, and advance insights in climate law and governance. Ambition to Action: Advancing Climate Justice and Finance With leading climate law and governance counsel, experts and practitioners preparing to join over 20,000 Party delegates and observers for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) 31 Conference of the Parties (COP31) on 9 November – 20 November 2026, a unique opportunity arises to increase ambition, harness the knowledge and engagement of the climate law and governance community, share innovations and good practices, and strengthen networks and capacity for ambitious climate action. To deliberate on these critical issues, this year's Climate Law and Governance Day (CLGD 2026) will be held in person and online on Friday, 13 November 2026 during the UNFCCC COP31. This full-day global symposium will feature distinguished plenaries, celebratory launching events, and more than 8 world-class specialist panels and workshops. To reduce barriers and encourage global participation, this year’s Climate Law and Governance Day will be held both in person and online via Zoom. Overview • What legal and institutional reforms are needed to accelerate implementation of the Paris Agreement and deliver on ambitious NDC 3.0 commitments? • How can law and governance strengthen national climate ambition, unlock finance for decarbonisation, and hold actors accountable at every level? • How can law and justice together drive equity, resilience, and a just transition for the world's most climate-vulnerable communities? On the tenth anniversary of the Paris Agreement, CLGD 2026 aims to inspire and optimise legal and institutional reform to operationalise and implement the Paris Agreement. The objectives of the symposium include profiling and sharing innovative international, national, and local law and governance challenges, mechanisms, and good practices. By convening esteemed legal and public policy experts, judges, negotiators, professors and practitioners from around the world that are committed to implementing the Paris Agreement, CLGD 2026 seeks to catalyse knowledge exchange and co-generate new climate law and governance scholarship, insights and approaches, facilitating new dialogue and partnerships. The symposium further aims to strengthen capacity and collaboration among the climate law and governance community of practice to implement the Doha Amendment, Paris Agreement and COP outcomes, supporting achievement of the world’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). CLGD 2026 Themes This year’s symposium will focus on the following four key themes, which have been identified in consultation with the CLGI Programme Committee based on the vision and goals to enhance ambition and enable action set by Türkiye as holder of the UNFCCC COP31 Presidency and Australia serving as President of Negotiations, as informed by the UNFCCC 64th Subsidiary Bodies meetings in June 2026: • Operationalising the Paris Agreement: Advancing the implementation of ambitious NDC 3.0 commitments and long-term low-emission development strategies; translating the outcomes of the “Baku to Belem Roadmap” into measurable action across sectors; prioritizing forests as nature based solutions, recognizing their role as critical carbon sinks and biodiversity reservoirs, and advancing ecosystem based approaches essential for climate resilience and global mitigation efforts; advancing the operationalisation of Article 9, including the New Collective Quantified Goal, the Loss and Damage Fund, as well as the Global Goal on Adaptation (GGA); enhancing transparency, the Global Stocktake (GST), technology transfer, and capacity-building through the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement implementation architecture (COP/SBs, global dialogues, expert groups, implementation and compliance committee), as well as through complementary international regimes such as UNCLOS, CBD, and IMO. • Scaling Up National Climate Ambition and Action through Law and Governance: Innovating high ambition instruments for climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and finance; creating multilevel governance synergies within and across sectors; advancing local, regional and national carbon budgets, planning rules and regulations; assessing legal barriers and strengthening capacity amongst leaders, practitioners and advocates for NDCs/NAPs/LTs delivery. Strengthened legal coherence and integration across policy frameworks is essential to ensure implementation at scale and alignment with the Paris Agreement and global climate goals. • Advancing Climate Justice: Engaging civil society and the legal community, courts, law associations and others in raising climate ambition and accelerating climate action, enhancing transparency and ensuring accountability, integrating rights-based approaches, advancing loss and damage response, supporting access to climate justice and climate litigation, and addressing climate migration and intergenerational equity. Leveraging advisory opinions from international and regional courts can clarify legal obligations, while embedding human rights at the core of climate governance ensures that climate responses are equitable and just. • Deploying Law and Legal Instruments for Implementing Decarbonization through Finance, Investment, and Trade: Harnessing law on all levels and commercial legal instruments to leverage the NCQG for mobilising all finance flows for investment in climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience; scaling up re-allocation of capital and sustainable global supply chains, and addressing fossil fuel subsidies, climate risk disclosure, a just transition and decarbonisation, especially through private, trade, investment and competition law, and through commercial and corporate rules. Legal tools must also be used to ensure that trade policies support sustainability goals, that environmental labels are credible and enforceable, and that greenwashing is effectively prevented through robust regulatory frameworks and corporate accountability. More About the Symposium Climate Law and Governance Day 2026 builds on a series of special events co-hosted by key partners from the Climate Law and Governance Initiative (CLGI) during the UNFCCC climate conferences since the 2005 MOP1/COP11 in Montreal, Canada to mobilise the international law and governance community to help implement the UNFCCC and most recently, the Paris Agreement in the context of the global Sustainable Development Goals. This global symposium aims to facilitate meaningful dialogue between COP delegates, observers, stakeholders, students, and others with a keen interest in national and international law and governance related to climate change. About the Climate Law and Governance Initiative (CLGI) The Climate Law and Governance Initiative is a world-leading partnership of law and governance faculties, expert institutes, international organisations, lawmakers, government delegates and foremost practitioners, which since 2015 has been collaborating to foster implementation of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement with the support of a secretariat provided by the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) from McGill University and the University of Cambridge. Each year, CLGI supports an international programme of special side events and other sessions hosted by collaborating partners, co-hosts and session hosts, including the Research and Independent NGOs (RINGOs) constituency and others at the COP. These events often take place in official UNFCCC side event zones of the COP Climate Change Conference, as well as further associated venues, in collaboration with leading climate law and governance organisations.