Climate Change, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Law in the Context of Pandemic Recovery

29-30 October 2021 | University of Cambridge, UK

Hybrid Event (Online)

Click here for the full online conference agenda

The Paris Agreement charts a new course in the global effort to address climate change. For progressively more ambitious nationally determined contributions to the global response to climate change, countries need specific domestic measures to reduce emissions and adapt to the effects of climate change on all levels, and to change the direction of financial flows. Non-Party stakeholders are also invited to scale up their efforts. Since COP22, the Marrakesh Partnership has focused these efforts through the UNFCCC Race to Zero campaign. In the lead-up to COP26 in November 2021 in Glasgow, UK, the UNFCCC High Level Climate Champions have focused on scaling up of efforts by financial institutions and the corporates they invest in, among many other actors across society.

The international conference on Climate Change, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) & the Law in the Context of Pandemic Recovery, taking place at the University of Cambridge and online in the week preceding COP26, will feature keynotes and experts plenary with leading practitioners, researchers & academics in the areas of law, climate change, politics & land economy & beyond, also special climate law careers sessions for emerging scholars, junior law and governance practitioners and students.

The conference will focus on the following five themes, linked to the COP26 debates:

1. Advancing Paris Agreement Innovations – Progress & opportunities in transparency, markets & non- market instruments, finance, loss & damage, compliance & implementation mechanisms.

2. Scaling-up Climate Legal Frameworks for Action – Effective climate governance, public and private sector industry-wide, cross-sectoral and entire value and supply-chain GHG mitigation standards, rights-based approaches, loss and damage, human mobility & climate justice litigation.

3. Designing International Interlinkages & Engagement – Climate change in regimes on maritime governance, biodiversity, ozone, civil aviation, trade, investment, human rights, peace & security.

4. Scaling up Nature-Based Solutions for Mitigation & Resilience – Legal & governance frameworks for adaptation & resilience and addressing loss and damage, conservation & sustainable use of terrestrial & marine & ocean ecosystems, promotion of sustainable development.

5. Incentivizing Climate-Positive Measures to Foster Ambition Towards Carbon Neutrality & Carbon Negativity – State and regional policies & legislation for rapid decarbonisation, as well as broader public and private international law and policy measures to promote clean energies and incentivize carbon-negative technologies at all levels.

* Due to University of Cambridge and UK Covid-19 protocols, raising cases within the community, and to be respectful to colleagues traveling to COP 26 on behalf of thier delegations conference participation has been moved completely online.