Confronting the Resilience Elephant:
From Science to Solutions

Session Overview

As climate shocks intensify, the critical question is no longer whether resilience strategies exist, but whether they can withstand pressure, deliver over time, and serve those most at risk. This flagship session shifts from broad principles to practical interrogation, asking how current approaches measure up when tested against evidence, equity, and long-term uncertainty.

Building on momentum from London Climate Action Week, where the Resilience Science Must-Knows were first introduced, this Climate Week NYC session takes the next step—stress-testing real-world approaches. Through a mix of expert provocations and practical interrogation, participants will explore how science can inform action and finance solutions that last. In this session, we will be putting real-world strategies under the microscope in shark-tank style and hands-on “resilience help-line”. The discussion will contribute directly to COP30 in Belém, aligning with the Presidency’s Granary of Solutions and the broader global resilience agenda.

Problem at hand

Resilience efforts remain fragmented and often geared toward short-term outcomes. Evidence shows that without deliberate attention to equity, agency, and system-level coherence, even technically strong solutions struggle to endure. This session examines what it takes to translate evidence into resilience strategies that work under pressure and hold over time, using a solid evidence base from the Resilience Science Must-Knows.

Format & Participation

This 90-minute session combines a radio talk show with a resilience-help line format to allow for sharp insights with applied testing. A moderated “resilience stress-test” will put two real-economy resilience solutions under the spotlight. Experts and practitioners will interrogate their strengths and gaps in real time, creating space for constructive exchange and practical refinement.

Participants will:

• Examine two real-world resilience strategies from the perspective of durability, equity, and systemic fit.
  Hear incisive critiques from resilience scientists and practitioners on what makes—or breaks—long-term resilience.
• Identify actionable shifts needed to strengthen and scale solutions.
• Connect insights directly to COP30 priorities, including the Global Goal on Adaptation and the Presidency’s six Axes.

Audience

This session is designed for cross-sector leaders: financiers, insurers, corporates, city officials, grassroots organizers, policymakers, and researchers. Whether shaping investments, designing policies, or implementing programs, participants will leave with sharper criteria for what constitutes resilience that lasts.

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Session Overview

As the world faces a triple planetary crisis – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution – the imperative to build infrastructure that works with, rather than against, nature has never been clearer. Traditional engineering has often prioritized short-term functionality and efficiency, sometimes at the expense of ecological systems and long-term resilience. To address this, nature-positive engineering promotes practices that actively protect, restore, and enhance natural systems, delivering measurable ecological gains while simultaneously supporting societal wellbeing and meeting human needs.

This event creates a space to explore the imperative of developing solutions that serve both people and the planet, bringing together a diverse group of organisations already working in this space. The session will showcase inspiring examples, including scaling up the implementation of green–grey (hybrid) solutions; applying digital and AI tools to expand the viability of hybrid infrastructure in under-mapped urban areas; embedding inclusive design that centers community priorities; and exploring how innovative insurance premium models could reward ecosystem-enhancing infrastructure.

During the event, the Nature-Positive Engineering Foresight Review by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation will be launched, setting out a framework and recommendations for safely scaling up nature- and people-positive solutions as part of adaptation and development pathways. The session will also highlight the Global Green-Gray Community of Practice, a collaborative network that connects practitioners, researchers, and decision-makers to share knowledge, accelerate learning, and advance the use of hybrid infrastructure solutions worldwide.

Problem at hand

Coastal and urban communities are facing increasing exposure to climate shocks, while infrastructure investments continue to rely heavily on conventional “grey” approaches that often degrade ecosystems, deepen social inequities, and fail under compounding risks. Nature-positive engineering through green–grey solutions offers a pathway to resilience, yet these approaches remain underutilized. Adaptation plans are often too high-level to translate into bankable projects, and investors and insurers still lack the standards, metrics, and data needed to evaluate the risk-reduction and co-benefits of working with nature. At the same time, governance frameworks remain fragmented, with climate, biodiversity, and development agendas pursued in isolation. Without systemic reforms and the meaningful inclusion of vulnerable communities, particularly those living in informal settlements, the resilience gap will continue to grow, leaving people and ecosystems increasingly exposed.

Format & Participation

This 75-minute session combines lightning insights with a cross-sector panel, designed to spark dialogue between engineers, community leaders, insurers, financiers, and innovators. Graphic facilitation will capture key insights, and participants will be invited to a short, interactive pulse exercise to highlight shared priorities.

Participants will:

• Introduce the concept of Nature-positive Engineering
• Examine practical cases where hybrid green-grey infrastructure has strengthened resilience while restoring ecosystems.
• Identify how digital tools and AI can unlock planning and financing in high-risk and informal areas.
• Explore how community priorities can be embedded from the outset to ensure uptake and durability of solutions.

Audience

This session is designed for decision-makers and practitioners working at the intersection of infrastructure, finance, and community resilience. Whether you bring capital, design expertise, or lived experience, this session offers a platform to connect across silos and co-develop actionable pathways for scaling hybrid solutions

Session Overview

Despite clear evidence that every USD 1 invested in climate adaptation yields USD 2–10 in benefits, less than 5% of global climate finance goes to adaptation, and in low-income countries, fewer than 10% of disaster losses are insured. The resulting global resilience deficit leaves frontline communities, supply chains, and national economies dangerously exposed.

National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) play a crucial role in coordinating and prioritizing where finance should flow. They have the potential to serve as detailed blueprints for channeling resources towards climate-resilient development, outlining national priorities, sector-specific strategies, policies, incentives, and project pipelines. However, many NAPs remain too high-level, not providing the granular information that is needed to attract investments.

Building on insights from London Climate Action Week and looking ahead to COP30 in Belém, this session explores how governments, financiers, and practitioners can better align capabilities to make NAPs genuinely investable. The discussion will spotlight how inclusive financial instruments and risk-analytics tools must be woven into NAPs to ensure they serve the most vulnerable, build systemic resilience, and deliver confidence to investors. The aim is to align incentives, connect innovations, and co-create financial systems that are inclusive, resilient, and fit for a volatile future.

Problem at hand

As of January 2025, only 64 countries have submitted their NAPs to UNFCCC. While these plans outline national priorities, few translate into concrete pipelines or sectoral detail that financiers require. The result is a persistent mismatch: governments call for adaptation finance, while investors and lenders lack structured, risk-adjusted opportunities to respond.

Meanwhile, risk analytics, innovative insurance products, and inclusive finance models exist, but they are rarely embedded in NAPs in ways that transform national strategies into bankable projects. Bridging this gap requires building capacity to quantify risks, structure them into investment-ready programs, and create coordination platforms where governments, financiers, innovators, and communities co-develop actionable, country-owned pipelines.

If NAPs are to function as true investment roadmaps, they must integrate inclusive financial mechanisms that reach the most vulnerable, generate resilience dividends across economies, and give investors confidence that adaptation projects are viable and scalable.

Format & Participation

This session blends sharp insight with active exchange, encouraging honest reflection and real-time critique. It features a Shark Tank-style discussion, where government and multilateral actors present their approaches to making NAPs investable, followed by candid reactions from private finance leaders. Graphic facilitation will capture key insights, and a curated coffee mixer will follow to deepen connections and foster new partnerships.

Participants will

• Examine progress by governments and agencies in making NAPs ‘investable’.
• Engage in direct dialogue between governments and private finance actors.
• Explore how the private sector can be integrated into mobilizing finance for NAPs and how the risk analytics capabilities of the private sector can be integrated into prioritizing financial flows.
• Surface actionable ideas and partnerships to strengthen adaptation finance pipelines.

Audience

This session is designed for those shaping and delivering adaptation finance at any scale, including representatives from ministries of finance, local governments, development banks, microfinance institutions, investors, philanthropy, fintech, grassroots organizations, and corporations with local value chains. Whether you bring capital, policy, or practice, your perspective is essential in co-creating adaptation finance that works from the ground up.

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Session Overview

As climate shocks intensify, the health impacts are becoming impossible to ignore. From heat stress and air pollution to maternal mortality in fragile contexts, the climate crisis is reshaping the global burden of disease and straining health systems already stretched thin. Yet health remains under-represented in climate negotiations, often siloed from adaptation, resilience, and finance discussions.

This session brings together leaders from global health, research, policy, employers, and storytelling to highlight how to elevate health as both a frontline impact and a strategic entry point for stronger climate action. Anchored in the Belem Health Action Plan, the Global Goal on Adaptation, and the COP30 Presidency’s call to protect lives and livelihoods, the session will explore how health can become a unifying force, aligning equity, policy, and investment for a just, resilient future.

Problem at Hand

Only approximately 2% of adaptation finance and a mere 0.5% of multilateral climate funding are devoted to health-related climate action. At the same time, the IPCC highlights that climate change is a growing threat to human well‑being and planetary health, and warns that delays in integrating adaptation and mitigation with health systems will significantly reduce our ability to protect lives. Without better alignment across health and climate systems—and predictable, scaled financing—populations will continue to suffer preventable harm and resilience goals will fall dangerously short.

Format & Participation

The discussion will spotlight the intersection of health and resilience and demonstrate the need and value to transform climate narratives through health and wellbeing. Interweaving the science with real-world stories and experiences, this panel will also translate the often technical climate policy discussions into accessible and relatable narratives that invite public engagement.

Participants will

• Unpack health as the frontline of climate risk: understanding systemic vulnerabilities (heat, food, disease, mental health) and their equity implications.
• Consider health as a lever for resilience investment: examine cases where framing adaptation through health outcomes (maternal health, occupational health, One Health approaches) can catalyze stronger political will, corporate engagement, and finance flows.
• Connect culture, media, and advocacy: through inputs from Think Film and communications partners, identify strategies to shift narratives and build public demand for climate action that centers human well-being.

Audience

This session is designed for public health leaders, emergency planners, city officials, infrastructure specialists, social service providers, humanitarian responders, and community organizers. It will also engage funders, donors, and private-sector actors interested in building shock-ready, people-centered systems.