The Nature Hub CWNYC 2026 events

Every day we are confronted by headlines that highlight conflict, uncertainty and setbacks. Yet around the world there is another story to tell. Forests are being restored. Indigenous communities are leading conservation and stewardship at scale. Governments are delivering policy change. Companies and investors are beginning to move from commitment to implementation. Communities are showing what nature-positive development looks like in practice.

The Nature Hub reception will bring together some of the people behind those stories to share what progress actually looks like, where momentum is building, and how nature, climate and communities are delivering measurable results. Through a small number of powerful stories, followed by targeted networking, the evening will create space for inspiration, connection and practical partnership during New York Climate Week.

This event will bring together communities, project proponents, and investors to discuss the importance of high-quality carbon projects grounded in community partnership. The event will showcase practical, implementable solutions for fairly and equitably sharing value with affected communities, such as Conservation International’s Community Value Sharing Pledge and other innovative tools, and highlight lessons learned for ensuring success.

This year, a series of major international milestones are placing the ocean at the front of the agenda – across biodiversity, conservation, and climate – including the first Conference of the Parties (COP1) of the landmark High Seas (BBNJ) Agreement. At the UN Climate Conference (COP31), all three presidencies — Türkiye, Australia, and the Pacific — have committed to making the ocean a priority.

This plenary will explore how the upcoming climate conference and regional platforms for ocean conservation finance can help advance climate outcomes. Much of global policy’s impact depends on regional implementation— and regional financial tools are often what make that implementation possible. The Pacific Resilience Facility is one such example, translating global climate and biodiversity commitments into finance a region can actually deploy.

This plenary session presents two critical discussions:

Opening Remarks and Ministerial Segment

High-level remarks opening with the COP31 presidencies’ shared commitment to making the ocean a priority — and what that commitment needs to mean in practice. From there, remarks turn to how regional platforms, including the Pacific Resilience Facility, translate that commitment into finance and action on the ground.

Panel Progress in Action: Scaling Ocean Resilience – Closing the Gap between Ambition and Investment

The blue economy is where climate ambition meets economic opportunity. Turning ocean-based ideas into reality requires research, talent, and organizations  to design, create, and implement projects. Those ideas then require capital: from  blue bonds and debt-for-nature swaps to Indigenous-led conservation finance, a new generation of tools has unlocked over a billion dollars for the ocean in the past five years alone. Yet, ocean-based solutions are still only 1% of global climate finance, and capital delivers only when it reaches the communities that can use it. To deliver on the promise of the ocean, how can we catalyze a new wave of ocean solutions and finance?

As the world looks for credible, scalable climate solutions, forests are increasingly central to the conversation. Yet the role of managed and commercial forests remains contested. Done badly, logging and weak forest management can damage ecosystems, communities and trust. Done well, sustainable forest management can support large-scale carbon storage, nature restoration, biodiversity, livelihoods and long-term stewardship. This invite-only workshop will bring together leaders from conservation, forestry, carbon markets, corporate climate and finance to ask a practical question: what would it take for commercial forestry to earn confidence as a high-integrity nature-based climate solution? The initial focus will be on the global south, where questions around the appropriate role of commercial tree farms and durability drive much of the public discussion.

Confidence in natural climate solutions depends on a more robust, science-backed understanding of durability risk – where carbon storage is more exposed to reversal, how those risks are changing under climate change, and how standards and buyers should account for them. This working session will start with durability mapping to date — from foundational work and its implementation in Article 6 non-permanence risk tools to the critiques and limitations. And then focus on next-generation datasets and systems needed to make reversal risk more transparent, dynamic, and decision-useful. Held under the Chatham House rule, participants have an opportunity to shape the future of how durability is handled and help decide what the science can already support and what still needs to be built.

As wildfire risk grows and demands on forests continue to expand, the challenge is no longer simply recognizing that America’s economy depends on healthy ecosystems, but determining how to finance the survival of its forests. ​This discussion will explore the emerging mix of market-based and public funding approaches that can support long-term forest stewardship, resilience, and conservation across the United States. Panelists will examine how carbon markets, sustainable forest products, certification systems, innovative financing mechanisms, and locally generated public funding can work together to create a more durable and diversified funding stack for healthy forests and the communities that depend on them.

This session will explore emerging evidence and practical opportunities to align fiscal policies and public investment with forest and climate goals. Discussions will examine how sovereign debt, taxation, debt sustainability frameworks, international tax reforms and the repurposing of environmentally harmful subsidies can create greater fiscal space, strengthen incentives for forest protection, and support more sustainable development pathways.

​This plenary session presents two critical discussions:

​From Risk to Resilience: Using Nature Intelligence to Guide Investment

​2:25-3:20 PM – Hosted by Audubon and Satelligence

​As companies and governments navigate climate change, nature loss, and supply chain disruptions, advanced nature intelligence is transforming how leaders evaluate risk and opportunity. This session explores how to leverage nature intelligence as a strategic tool for commercial resilience, supply security, and long-term growth. Convening leaders across conservation, technology, and business, the discussion showcases real-world projects that treat nature as critical infrastructure – from cities to global supply chains. Panelists will share insights on translating environmental risk data into capital decisions that strengthen agricultural landscapes, secure production, and deliver measurable, nature-positive outcomes. Join us to learn how better data directs capital, action, and accountability toward the landscapes that matter most.

​Freshwater at the Heart of Climate Action: From Planetary Boundaries to Corporate Leadership

​3:30- 4:25 PM – ​Hosted by Conservation International and the Arbor Day Foundation

​This event will spotlight freshwater restoration as a critical, practical, and under-recognized pathway for delivering climate mitigation, adaptation, biodiversity, and business resilience outcomes. The discussion will connect the global science of planetary boundaries with emerging evidence on the climate benefits of freshwater restoration and the growing role of companies in setting science-based freshwater targets and investing in basin-level action.

This highly interactive closed door working session that will move beyond an introduction to Natural Asset Companies (NACs), developed by Intrinsic Exchange Group (IEG), to explore what it will take to make the model investable and build a broader market. The session will begin with a brief update on NACs (a new and emerging asset class on nature finance), where they fit within the broader nature finance landscape, the core NAC requirements and safeguards, latest insights around the emerging reporting standards in this space, investment facilities and progress on the pipeline.

Coming soon.

Carbon markets have faced years of scrutiny over issues related to integrity, transparency and impact. Meanwhile a set of innovations has emerged to answer some of the market’s most stubborn problems. This session moves past whether carbon markets should exist and asks something more useful: what is improving, what is working both in terms of how we manage risk and unlock opportunity, and what still has to happen for confidence and scale to follow?

This closed session will bring together forest jurisdictions and private sector stakeholders to deepen understanding of Jurisdictional REDD+ (J-REDD+) credits and their growing role in corporate climate and nature strategies. The discussion will focus on the significant opportunities J-REDD+ brings to forest jurisdictions and corporate buyers, and how these can be realised now that J-REDD+ is ready to scale.