Development and Climate Days 2025 goes digital-first ahead of Brazil UNFCCC COP30

Development and Climate Days (D&C Days), the influential climate event that traditionally runs alongside the UNFCCC climate summit, is undergoing a major transformation in 2025 to address mounting accessibility challenges and the urgent need for developing breakthrough climate solutions.

The reimagined D&C Days 2025 will feature a two-part format: a digital event on Thursday 30 October, followed by an in-person reception on 15 November at the Resilience Hub at COP30 in Belém, Brazil.

Breaking down elite barriers

D&C Days partners acknowledge that participation in D&C Days has historically been limited to 'an elite few' – those with the capacity and resources to attend COP host cities during one of the year's largest international events. The event, which is renowned in climate circles, is consistently oversubscribed, but situating it exclusively within COP creates a barrier to participation for those practitioners, negotiators, scientists and policymakers who are unable to attend COP.

"The world has changed. The challenges have intensified. The need for breakthrough solutions has never been more urgent," said IIED's Paul Mitchell, principal researcher (locally-led adaptation and climate finance), explaining their decision to incorporate digital participation based on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, when online D&C Days events remained 'highly successful – and more accessible'.

Strategic timing for Amazon COP

The digital event aims to bring together climate thought leaders online to develop key messages and policy asks to influence COP30 negotiations in Brazil. The in-person reception will highlight these messages with UNFCCC experts and negotiators during the climate summit itself.

COP30 represents a critical juncture for global climate action, taking place in Belém at the heart of the Amazon rainforest. The summit is expected to focus on implementation rather than new agreements, with particular emphasis on climate finance, Indigenous leadership, loss and damage, and nature-based solutions. Brazil's hosting role carries both strategic and symbolic weight as countries reassess and strengthen their climate commitments. 

The action agenda at COP30 specifically targets ‘non-party’ stakeholders – including businesses, NGOs and local governments – to accelerate climate action. This creates an important opportunity for D&C Days to unite leaders, thinkers and innovators from across the globe. Locally-led approaches to climate action have also been included as a key initiative in the COP30 action agenda, providing a significant new platform to showcase efforts underway to build community resilience to climate impacts.

Focus on climate action and justice

D&C Days 2025 will concentrate on climate actions across three key areas, focusing on three pertinent themes in climate policy and advocacy discussions year-on-year around effectively getting resources to the most climate-vulnerable countries and people:

1. Scaling locally-led approaches to climate action
2. Financing resilience, and
3. Innovation for transformation.

Within each theme, D&C Days will address uncomfortable truths, tackle big questions, seek effective and practical answers, and work together on fair solutions that leave no one behind. At D&C Days, the dynamic format encourages dialogue on a range of issues that link policy, knowledge and practice. Innovative approaches encourage participants to interact, challenge existing thinking and generate new ideas.

Everyone at the frontline of the sustainable development and climate agendas should join D&C Days 2025, including practitioners, NGOs, grassroots organisation representatives, national climate leaders and policymakers at all levels

– Paul Mitchell, IIED principal researcher

The new format reflects acceptance within the climate community that traditional conference models are inadequate to address the scale and urgency of the climate crisis, particularly when crucial voices cannot access these solution-focused discussions. 

Registration details and sessions for both the digital and in-person events are expected to be announced in the coming month.