Upcoming: Climate Law and Governance Day 2024

Call for Partners, Session Proposals and Sponsors
Climate Law and Governance Day 2024

Convening virtually on Friday, 15 November 2024 during the UNFCCC COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan

 

Submissions will be accepted through 1 September 2024 (Sunday).

With leading climate law and governance counsel, experts and practitioners preparing to join over 30,000 Party delegates and observers for the 29th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 11 – 22 November 2024, 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 the race to net zero. In response, the Climate Law and Governance Initiative has launched this global call for partners, sponsors and session hosts for Climate Law and Governance Day 2024, which will be held entirely online on Friday, 15 November 2024.

The opportunity is now open for any interested Parties, observers or other institutions to become partners or sponsors, or to propose a session for the programme. More information can be found below.


Overview
This year’s Climate Law and Governance Day (CLGD 2024) will be held entirely online on Friday, 15 November 2024 during the 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Baku, Azerbaijan. This full-day global symposium will feature distinguished plenaries, celebratory launching events, more than 8 world-class specialist panels and workshops, as well as the presentation of the 2024 Climate Law and Governance Global Leadership Awards and the 2024 Students Climate Law and Governance Essay Competition Prizes.


CLGD 2024 aims to inspire and optimise legal and institutional reform for achieving current Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris Agreement, responding to 2024 Global Stocktake outcomes and increasing the ambition of the next round of NDCs. The objectives of the symposium include identifying and sharing innovative international, national, and local law and governance challenges, mechanisms and good practices relating to global efforts to address climate change. 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 2024 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 2024 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 Azerbaijan as the UNFCCC COP29 Presidency, as informed by the UNFCCC 60th Subsidiary Bodies meetings in June 2024:

  1. Operationalising the Paris Agreement: Contributing to the New Collective Quantified Goal on Climate Finance (NCQG), Global Goal on Adaptation, Article 6 Market and Non-market Approaches, Article 9 Loss and Damage Fund, transparency, technology, capacity-building, through the UNFCCC/Paris Agreement implementation architecture (COP/SBs, global dialogues, expert groups, implementation and compliance committee), UNCLOS and other international regimes.
  2. Scaling Up National Climate Ambition and Action through Law and Governance: Innovating high ambition instruments for climate mitigation, adaptation and resilience, and finance; creating 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/LTS delivery.
  3. 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.
  4. Deploying the Law and Legal Instruments for Investing in Transition: 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.

Venue
To reduce barriers and encourage global participation, this year’s Climate Law and Governance Day will be held entirely online via Zoom. Registration for the symposium will open in the coming weeks.


Becoming a Partner or Sponsor
Government departments from Parties to the UNFCCC or the Paris Agreement, UN bodies, other intergovernmental organisations, academic and other institutions, jurists, law firms and associations, businesses and civil society are invited to join as partners or sponsors of the Climate Law and Governance Initiative. The continued support of our diverse network of government, intergovernmental, university, private sector and civil society partners, as well as law firms and associations, is very important and new partners are always welcome.

Partners and sponsors are especially sought to provide participation grants which can enable more least developed and highly climate vulnerable country delegates, academics, students and other stakeholders to engage more equitably in CLGD 2024, and to cover communications, reporting, volunteer coordination and other costs of hosting events. 

Key Reasons to Become a Partner in Climate Law and Governance Day 2024

  • Share knowledge, research, innovations and experience
  • Network and open opportunities for new collaborations
  • Learn from leading research and initiatives in the field
  • Connect with specialist law and governance support
  • Access innovative legal and institutional tools to advance ambitious climate action

UNFCCC Parties, Observers, institutions or other stakeholders interested in becoming a partner or sponsor of Climate Law and Governance Day 2024 are asked to complete the following Google form at their earliest convenience: https://forms.gle/snNN81hH7UsCvWtr9. Potential partners or sponsors are welcome to contact the CLGI Secretariat by email at climatelawgovernance@cisdl.org with any questions or to discuss collaboration.

Proposing a Session
Any government, institution or consortium of partners is welcome to submit a brief proposal for a 70-minute concurrent session at Climate Law and Governance Day 2024. All session proposals must be submitted by 1 September 2024 and include the following:

  1.  Session Title: The proposed title should be short, approximately 8 words, and should start with an action verb, such as advancing, linking, governing, addressing, etc.
  2. Session Contact/Host: This individual is the primary contact for all communications between the CLGI Secretariat and CLGD organisers and the session speakers and is
    responsible for sharing all logistical information with the speakers.
  3. Convening Organisation(s): These are the organisations that will be involved in hosting the session and can include, but are not limited to, the organisations with which the proposed speakers are affiliated.
  4. Session Description: A high-level description of the session in paragraph form, no bullet points. (100-word maximum)

  5. Session Theme: Select the theme most related to your session submission. Additional information regarding each theme can be found above under “CLGD 2024 Themes.
    -Theme 1: Operationalising the Paris Agreement
    -Theme 2: Scaling Up National Climate Ambition and Action through Law and Governance
    -Theme 3: Advancing Climate Justice
    -Theme 4: Deploying the Law and Legal Instruments for Investing in Transition
  6. Session Type Preference: Select your preferred session type from among the following. Your preference will be taken into consideration by the Programme Committee. 
    -Experts Panel (experts present their views on a topic, followed by a moderated discussion and attendee Q&A)
    -Legal Roundtable (conversation between speakers on a topic, without slides or presentation materials, followed by attendee Q&A)
    -Participatory Workshop (interactive discussion focused on joint exploration of a topic, followed by attendee Q&A)

  7. Proposed Chairs and Speakers: Provide the name, contact information, title, and affiliation of all proposed speakers and identify which of the speakers will chair the session.

  8. Proposed Discussants: Provide the name, contact information, title, and affiliation of all proposed discussants. The discussants commit to being online during the session, but will only present during the session if one of the speakers drops out at the last minute. The discussants also ask the first questions during the Q&A segment at the end of each session.
  9. Proposed Cost Share: To offset the costs of hosting this special global event, session hosts are asked to help find sponsors for their session. The small contributions by each successful session proponent cover law student support for registration, coordination, website and social media engagement, and reporting from the event. They also cover post design and outreach, communications, programme design and formatting, zoom licence fees and bookkeeping. Please provide the amount your session is willing to contribute. If the organisations for your proposed session are unable to contribute to this cost-share, please select “request Programme Committee member sponsor.”

Proposed sessions that plan to share the work of hosts across the global UNFCCC community and/or offer launching or convening points for ongoing programmes are especially encouraged.


To propose a session during CLGD 2024, please complete the following google form by the deadline: https://forms.gle/7vsT1FyanP7nBSVz7. If you have trouble accessing the form, please email the programme managers at climatelawgovernance@cisdl.org using the subject line “CLGD 2024 Session Proposal.”


Proposed sessions will be reviewed by the CLGI COP29 Programme Committee, and proponents may be asked to combine their proposals with others to co-host a session, in order to ensure that more organisations can host events. As mentioned above, successful proponents shall be asked to contribute modest cost-shares in order to ensure the success of the entire event. The CLGI Programme Committee has committed to sponsoring two proposals from least developed and highly climate vulnerable countries and institutions, and no cost-share would be required by these two sponsored sessions.


Timeline
Parties, Observer organisations and others are invited to submit session proposals via this google form link by 1 September 2024 (Sunday). Successful session hosts and co-hosts will then be notified of the Programme Committee’s decision via email.


Evaluation Criteria
Proposed sessions are evaluated by the CLGI COP29 Programme Committee. During the selection process, the Programme Committee will taking into consideration, among other factors, the following:

  • whether the proposed session has a clear linkage to one or more of the key themes for CLGD 2024;
  • the significance of the substantive topic for the evolving global climate law and governance agenda;
  • the global nature of the proposed session, considering the importance of regional equity, diversity and inclusion, including gender balance; and
  • the rigour and clarity of the session proposal.

Contact Us
For questions regarding session proposals, please contact the CLGI Secretariat at climatelawgovernance@cisdl.org.

To learn more about becoming a partner or sponsor, please contact Adv Tejas Rao at climatelawgovernance@cisdl.org.


More About the Symposium
Climate Law and Governance Day 2024 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.

Warmest thanks are due to the past and present partners and co-hosts of Climate Law and Governance Day.


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 small 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 COP29 Climate Change Conference, as well as further associated venues, in collaboration with leading climate law and governance organisations. This year’s events will include a half-day Climate Law and Governance Specialisation Course, which will be held online on 17 November 2024 to strengthen legal and institutional knowledge and capacity of UNFCCC delegates, observers, scholars and others for implementation and compliance with the Paris Agreement. A CLGI Booth at COP may also be available as a meeting point and dedicated space to share knowledge and materials, including about climate law and governance issues and activities, opening opportunities for exchanges among delegates and observers. CLGI publishes blog contributions during COP29, as well as legal working papers and books with world-leading presses based on COP collaborations.  

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