In a series of interviews in the lead-up to COP26 in Glasgow, we are chatting with academics whose research is focused on sustainability and tackling climate change.
Susanne Stühlinger is a PhD researcher in the School of Law involved in organising the Climate Law and Governance Day.
Could you briefly discuss the main topics of the event and how they relate to the COP26 agenda?
With three high-level plenaries and sixteen concurrent sessions which feature expert panels, roundtable discussions, and workshops on a vast range of topics, Climate Law and Governance Day is a major academic side event to COP26. It will focus on four main pillars:
- Operationalising the Paris Agreement, this means to get the various provisions of the Paris Agreement up and running
- Testing tools for High Ambition Implementation, that is to say to identify ways how we enhance the individual commitments of the parties to the Paris Agreement
- Advancing Climate Resilience and climate Justice through the action of civil society and courts including assigning a greater role to human rights
- Enable climate neutral investment and finance
Could you give us an insight into the range of participants and the event’s geographical reach?
Climate Law and Governance Day aims at bringing together law faculties and legal institutes, international organisations, governments, professionals, and other actors contributing to a strengthening of the legal response to climate change. There will be many high-profile participants such as Lucy Maxwell and Sarah Mead of the Urgenda Foundation, who has filed the first successful Climate Lawsuit, Christina Voigt, who is the Chair of the Implementation and Compliance Committee of the Paris Agreement, and Lord Robert Carnwath, who is a former UK Supreme Court Justice, among others.
The Day also explicitly aims to reach beyond Europe and the Western world and tries to incorporate perspectives from across the world.
How do you think the attendees can enhance their knowledge and engagement with the event’s themes before the Day?
The CLGD co-hosts are convening a preparatory academic climate law and public policy conference on ‘Climate Change, the SDGs and the Law’ to take place online on Friday afternoon 29 October and Saturday morning 30 October 2021. You can sign up for it here.
I also recommend that you look at the conference programme, identify themes based on your interests, and look into the panels/sessions and the participating speakers in advance to get the most out of the conference.
How can attendees follow up after the event and expand their understanding of its topics?
There will be a report summarising the outcomes of the conference as well as a number of future events where the attendees can further engage with the topics raised at Climate Law and Governance Day.
- On Sunday, 7 November 2021, COP26 delegates, observers, practitioners, students and others interested in learning more about the Paris Agreement and its international legal ramifications can join a one-day intensive Climate Law and Governance Specialisation Course, taught by some of the world’s leading climate law professors and practitioners, is being offered in the University of Strathclyde’s Innovation and Technology Centre as well as online, resulting in a special certification. Sign up here.
- Moreover, on Wednesday 1 December, a lecture titled ‘Accelerating Climate Law and Governance Courage, Contributions and Compliance for Sustainability’ by Prof Marie-Claire Cordonier Segger will be be held, to examine the outcomes of the COP26, and consider ways that law and governance reform can be mobilised to scale up implementation and compliance with the Paris Agreement. Register here.
View the programme of COP26 events across the University of Glasgow.
Part of the COP26 activities at the College of Social Sciences, University of Glasgow
