D&C Days ‘critical themes’ of localization, adaptation finance, innovation

By the Climate Centre

The online segment of this year’s two-part Development and Climate Days was held today, with a further in-person session scheduled for 15 November at COP 30 itself in Belem, Brazil.

Thursday’s virtual session (full agenda) was intended to “create a set of key messages and asks which can be taken to COP 30 to help influence climate decisions – recognizing the most vulnerable people and groups at the front lines of climate change,” organizers said.  

D&C Days isn’t just another COP event – it’s a powerful catalyst for change. Bringing together voices from around the globe ahead of COP 30, they add, creates a unique opportunity to “unite, collaborate, and amplify the urgent needs of those on the climate front lines”.

Climate Centre Director Aditya Bahadur, who was at the online session, said today: “The Development and Climate Days are an important annual highlight in the calendars of all those who are passionate about placing adaptation at centre stage in global climate policy discourses. 

“With nearly 1,000 participants registered from all over the world, the event has become an important platform for uncovering novel solutions and forging new collaborations.

“This year’s edition focuses on the critically important themes of localization, adaptation finance, and innovation – issues that are in the spotlight for COP 30.

‘Without a significant impact on adaptation financing, countries
will gradually lose interest
in participating in COP’

Fazle Rabbi Sadeque Ahmed, a professor at the School of Environmental Science and Management at the Independent University in Bangladesh, told a closing plenary session that countries need to see progress at this year’s climate talks. 

“If you can’t show any significant impact on adaptation financing, there will be countries who will not see any benefit in going to COP. They will gradually lose interest in participating in COP.”

Cristina Rumbaitis del Rio, Senior Adviser, Adaptation and Resilience, at the United Nations Foundation, told the session COP 30 could be challenge, but D&C Days had always been been as an opportunity and “a source of energy, optimism and ideas, to recharge, reflect and reorganize”.

The 15 November in-person event at the COP 30 Resilience Hub will “put the D&C Days key messages to the test”, gathering experts and contributors to refine these messages, ensuring they have the impact needed to influence the climate negotiations themselves.

This year’s two-part event was organized in partnership by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), the Climate Centre, DanChurchAid, the Global Resilience Partnership, and the Wellcome Trust, with support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Generating Ambition for Locally-led Adaptation programme.  

May Aung, IIED Senior Researcher and theme focal point on adaptation finance for D&C Days, at today’s online session. “With COPs getting increasingly difficult to access, it’s exciting that we’re able to open this space up for more people to have the difficult conversations that we need to really transform adaptation,” she says: (Photo: Paul Mitchell/IIED)