Schedule COP31

Health care facilities cannot deliver safe care without reliable water, sanitation and hygiene; this is not the reality for many frontline facilities in low resource, remote and climate exposed settings, where they are often the first to lose these services during heat, drought, flooding and storms. This session presents practical, replicable approaches to securing climate resilient WASH in frontline health care, drawing on case studies from the Philippines, the Eastern Mediterranean, Australia and the Pacific. Speakers from health ministries, humanitarian organisations, academia and clinical practice will cover facility risk assessment, low cost adaptation measures, and the financing gap between national adaptation plans and the facilities that implement them. The session will identify actions for governments, funders and water utilities to prioritise health care facilities in water resilience investment.

For the first time, sanitation sits within a COP Presidency priority (Activation Group 14). This session asks what an “Implementation COP” must deliver so that the GGA water and sanitation target, the Belém indicators and the new Action Agenda translate into resilient services people can count on—drawing directly on the SWA COP31 briefing and key messages.

The Presidency’s Zero Waste and Methane Reduction priority is framed mainly around solid waste. Yet wastewater and faecal sludge are significant and still under-recognized sources of methane, with practical solutions—improved collection and treatment, methane capture, biogas and energy recovery, reuse—that also deliver health, water-security, ecosystem and resilience benefits. This session makes the case for “solid and liquid waste” and showcases scalable solutions and finance models.

Several organizations are analysing how sanitation appears in the latest climate plans—UN-Habitat, WaterAid, UNEP/CCAC and the French Water Partnership. Instead of four separate launches, this session presents one aligned ‘data snapshot’ and then hands the floor to countries: what they committed to, what is costed and investment-ready, and what support they need. Finance actors respond on how to turn plan priorities into pipelines (including BRIDGE).

Interactive Dialogue C: Elevating Water Extremes and Water-Related Disaster Risk within the UNFCCC Adaptation Agenda

Adaptation happens where services are delivered. This session brings practitioners, researchers and governments together to exchange what works to keep sanitation running through floods, droughts and heat—across regulation, utilities, communities, health and ecosystems—and to identify evidence gaps. It closes the day with a short set of ‘Antalya sanitation messages’ to carry into World Toilet Day and the UN Water Conference.

Since its launch at COP26 in Glasgow (2021), the Water for Climate Pavilion has grown from a single-year initiative into the water community's permanent, coordinated presence at the UNFCCC COP. Convened each year by a Steering Committee and Partners, the Pavilion has unified the international water community's voice, anchored water in the formal climate negotiations, and built a durable platform that carries momentum from one COP to the next. The Water for Climate Pavilion’s secretariat is hosted by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

This session provides parties with concrete examples of how they can include high-quality water and sanitation indicators in their climate adaptation planning and implementation. With this event we ant to inform negotiators on the technical depth and expertise of the water and sanitation sector, and on the gaps that exist in the testing, and what support is therefore needed from the technical task force for making the water and sanitation targets reach everyone.

As oceans, land, and water face complex and inter-related threats, it is necessary to recalibrate and elevate stewardship as the primary response, addressing these topics

Sharing experiences from the ground and discussing the means of implementation

Last year, countries submitted updated NDCs, with water continuing to feature prominently in national climate commitments. The challenge now is turning these commitments, alongside NAP priorities, into practical action that strengthens water resilience at national, basin and local levels.

This session will establish the overall resilience framework for the day. It will examine how cities can understand and manage water-related climate risks through integrated planning and investment: connecting urban and catchment planning, water and sanitation services, conventional grey infrastructure, and nature-based and ecosystem-based solutions.

This session will examine how local governments, utilities and communities can reduce vulnerability before disasters occur and strengthen preparedness and response when they do, ensuring that the most exposed populations are not left outside formal planning and service systems.

The session will explore practical mechanisms for closing this gap, including grants and concessional finance, project preparation, blended finance, aggregation of projects, performance-based approaches, locally led adaptation finance and mechanisms for directing international climate finance towards subnational implementation. This closely aligns with COP31's emphasis on strengthening financial and institutional mechanisms that enable climate action

The final session will look towards scalable solutions and the “COP of the Future” agenda by examining technological and institutional innovation across three interconnected urban water challenges:

Indigenous women hold critical roles in their communities around relationships with water. Despite this, their roles have not been acknowledged, are undervalued, or dismissed by local and international partners on water. Indigenous knowledge, coupled with values-based management approaches led by Indigenous Peoples, offers substantial opportunities for deepening the understanding of the hydrological cycles and address climate change challenges. Indigenous territories cover an estimated 25% of global terrestrial land that are key drivers of the hydrological cycles, whether as sources of blue water or green water, and their approaches to governance positively benefit communities outside their territories but unrecognised by beneficiary communities. The session will showcase the impact of including Indigenous women in water governance with speakers from networks from global north and global south. It will offer key lessons for engagement and inclusion into decision-making.

Water is at the center of both the climate challenge and many of its solutions. Climate change is intensifying water-related risks, including drought, floods, changing precipitation patterns, water scarcity, declining water quality, and impacts on critical infrastructure and ecosystems. At the same time, resilient water systems are essential to climate adaptation, mitigation, sustainable development, and resilient communities.

Mountain regions experience increasingly frequent and intense flash floods driven by climate change, rapid land-use change, and growing exposure of vulnerable communities. These events often develop within hours, leaving limited time for preparedness and response while causing disproportionate impacts on lives, infrastructure, livelihoods, and ecosystems.

What does it take to make climate and water investments scalable, sustainable and impactful in the world's most vulnerable contexts? As climate risks intensify in fragile and conflict-affected settings (FCAS), the challenge is not identifying adaptation priorities but turning them into investable and scalable action. Water lies at the centre of this challenge, linking climate resilience, food security, livelihoods, energy, health and peace. This session will explore how climate and water priorities can be transformed into investments that deliver resilience at scale. Examining both the “push” and “pull” dimensions of scaling, panellists will draw on experiences from the MENA region and other FCAS contexts and discuss the innovations, institutions, finance mechanisms, delivery systems and policies needed to scale proven solutions, alongside the incentives, affordability, ownership and capacities required for adoption and sustainability.

This intergenerational panel will examine the growing challenge of micropollutants in wastewater and their implications for aquatic ecosystems, coastal resilience and climate action. Academic experts will introduce the sources, pathways and environmental impacts of contaminants that may remain insufficiently removed by conventional wastewater treatment. Experts from industry and clean-tech will then explore practical solutions, including advanced technologies that can be integrated into existing infrastructure and approaches for scaling innovative treatment methods. The session will also highlight youth-led research, entrepreneurship and innovation, creating space for young changemakers to contribute solutions to persistent water and pollution challenges. Bringing together researchers, practitioners, industry and youth, the discussion will identify practical pathways to strengthen wastewater management, urban resilience and protection of coastal and marine ecosystems.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) offer large opportunities to strengthen coastal resilience, climate adaptation, and ecosystem health. However, scaling these solutions requires more collaboration between project developers, conservation organizations, financial institutions and governments. The idea is to organize a reception that can bring together key stakeholders to share practical experiences, discuss implementation and financing opportunities, and build partnerships that can accelerate the development of high-impact coastal NbS projects.

An overview of the Peru Reconstruction Programme Integrated solutions portfolio with an emphasis on how EWS manages the residual risk traditional structural solutions cannot. There will also be a component of schools and hospitals delivered as part of the programme to give resilient foundations to communities

Water is a critical link between climate, biodiversity, communities and economic resilience. Nature-based solutions can simultaneously strengthen water and climate resilience, support climate adaptation, protect biodiversity, and contribute to resilient food systems. Beyond their environmental benefits, they offer tangible opportunities to strengthen community resilience, support local development and underpin long-term economic prosperity.

This proposed event will explore how investment in freshwater ecosystems can help countries deliver their biodiversity, land restoration and climate commitments together. It will use three country examples to connect national priorities with the finance, technical support and coordination needed for implementation, positioning the Freshwater Challenge (FWC) as a practical vehicle for delivering existing commitments.

This session will pre-launch the Green Water Flagship Initiative, highlighting the role of green water and the full hydrological cycle in strengthening climate adaptation, ecosystem resilience and sustainable land use. Combining technical insights with policy and implementation perspectives, it will showcase emerging metrics, diagnostics and practical approaches for translating green water science into decision-making, investment and action. The session will also build momentum for the Flagship Initiative and its broader coalition of Member States and partners.

Water heritage is a city's adaptation memory. Cisterns, aqueducts, fountains and piers hold centuries of answers to drought and heat.

The event will highlight the role of transboundary water cooperation in strengthening climate resilience and advancing climate action worldwide, particularly across Africa and the Middle East. As climate change increasingly affects shared water resources, cooperation between countries and across regions is essential to develop effective and sustainable responses. The event will explore how transboundary cooperation can support climate adaptation, strengthen resilience to climate-related water risks, and promote coherent action across borders and sectors. The discussion will also consider how regional and transboundary cooperation can contribute to the implementation of climate commitments, mobilize support and investment, and foster knowledge exchange and partnerships for climate-resilient water management. Finaly, it will discuss how to operationalize the GGA indicator 3d mentioning basins.

Solid waste and wastewater together are the third-largest source of anthropogenic methane, yet they are usually planned, financed and reported separately. In practice the two systems meet: mismanaged sewage and solid waste both pollute water, sewage and faecal sludge often end up on dumpsites or in landfills, landfill leachate is wastewater, food waste and sludge could be treated in synergy, and uncollected waste blocks drains aggravating urban flooding. This 60-minute panel brings the solid waste and water communities together to look at where joint planning can reduce methane faster, while also improving sanitation, water quality and urban resilience. Speakers from waste and water utilities, cities and finance will share practical examples and discuss measurement and MRV, and how countries can address waste and wastewater methane together in NDCs and local climate plans.

As the Sharm el-Sheikh Joint Work on Implementation of Climate Action on Agriculture and Food Security concludes at COP31, this interactive policy dialogue will explore the way forward for agriculture and food security under the UNFCCC. It will bring together policymakers, development and finance actors, farmers and youth to identify lessons, implementation gaps and priorities for making climate action more accessible, locally relevant and responsive to smallholder farmers and rural communities.

As climate finance increasingly prioritises investments that deliver visible adaptation outcomes, there is growing recognition that infrastructure and technologies alone do not create resilience. This session will examine the enabling conditions required for adaptation investments to succeed, including governance, institutions, finance, social cohesion and local ownership. Drawing on IWMI's experience in the MENA region and the Jahez programme in Jordan targeting refugee -hosting communities, panellists will explore how multi-stakeholder co design can strengthen both the "hardware" and "software" of resilience. Discussions will focus on de-risking climate investments, building local capacity to sustain adaptation solutions, and creating pathways that link national strategies with community-level resilience outcomes. The session will highlight practical lessons on how governments, donors and financial institutions can scale resilient systems that endure long after investments end.

Discuss and raise awareness of the findings and innovative recommendations included in the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities October 2026 report “How can we cope with coastal erosion?”.