Climate Law and Governance Day 2023 | 5 Dec 2023

Climate Law & Governance Day 2023 will take place during UNFCCC COP28, both in person at Middlesex University Dubai and online on Tuesday, 5 December 2023.

Climate Law and Governance Day 2023 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 international symposium aims to facilitate meaningful dialogue between COP delegates, observers and stakeholders, also keen students, with an interest in national and international law and governance related to climate change, including government representatives and leaders, leading international and domestic legal practitioners, and renowned legal experts. In partnership with hosts from the University of Cambridge, University of Dubai and Middlesex University Dubai, events shall occur in-person and online.

Climate Law & Governance Day 2023 Themes

Four key themes have been identified in consultation with the CLGD Programme Committee from the vision and goals set by the UNFCCC COP28 Presidency, as informed by CLGI events during the UNFCCC Climate Conference meeting of Subsidiary Bodies in June 2023:

I. Operationalising the Paris Agreement in International Law: Contributing to global stocktake, market and non-market approaches, transparency and technology frameworks, financial, capacity, compliance and loss and damage mechanisms, also synergies with other international legal instruments.

II. Testing Legal and Governance Tools for High Ambition Implementation: Innovating legal and governance instruments for climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and finance, creating synergies within and across sectors, assessing legal barriers and strengthening capacity amongst law and policy leaders, practitioners and advocates for high ambition NDC/LTS implementation.

III. Advancing Climate Resilience and Justice: Engaging civil society and the legal community, including courts, associations and others in accelerating climate action, enhancing transparency and ensuring accountability, integrating rights-based approaches, advancing WIM for loss and damage with effective financial and other structures, supporting access to climate justice and climate litigation, and addressing climate migration.

IV. Net Zero Legal Frameworks to Enable Climate Neutral Investment and Finance: Scaling up climate finance, investment, 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, commercial and corporate rules.

Climate Law & Governance Day Objectives

1. To inspire and optimize legal and institutional reform for achieving current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, supporting the 2023 Global Stocktake efforts and increasing the ambition of the next round of NDCs.

2. To profile and share innovative international, national, and local law and governance challenges, mechanisms and good practices relating to global efforts to address climate change.

3. To catalyse knowledge exchange and co-generate new climate law and governance scholarship, insights and approaches, facilitating new dialogue and partnerships.

4. To strengthen capacity, 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).

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To view the full list of plenaries, panels, workshops and roundtables that will be held during this year’s Climate Law and Governance Day, please see the Agenda.