CLIMATE ADAPTATION & RESILIENCE CONFERENCE 2026 (CARE2026)
8-10 October 2026
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
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Climate risk is no longer a distant projection. It is reshaping how societies function.
Extreme rainfall is intensifying. Heatwaves are lengthening. Compound events are becoming more frequent. Urban systems — transport, drainage, power, health, housing, and finance — are increasingly exposed to stresses they were not designed to withstand. Across Asia and around the world, adaptation is no longer optional. It is operational.
Building on previous CARE conferences, CARE2026 marks the third gathering in the series, an international platform dedicated to advancing climate adaptation and resilience through interdisciplinary dialogue and practical engagement.
The conference brings together governments, scientists, infrastructure operators, financial leaders, insurers, industry players, and community representatives to examine how climate risks cascade across interconnected systems, and how risk intelligence can guide preparedness, inform investment, strengthen decision-making, and enable coordinated adaptation across sectors.
CARE2026 is deliberately structured to reflect how climate risk unfolds in reality, from scientific insight to cascading system stress, and from system stress to societal and economic choices. It aims to strengthen collective understanding, clarify trade-offs, and support more informed and coordinated pathways toward climate adaptation.
CARE2026 Conference Structure
Day 2 examines how climate signals become stresses on urban systems, affecting infrastructure, economies, health and everyday life. The programme distinguishes between two broad but interconnected forms of risk:
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Episodic shocks, including extreme rainfall, flooding, coastal inundation and landslides; and
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Chronic stresses, including heat, humidity and poor air quality.
Across the day, the discussion moves from hazards to cascading impacts, and from impacts to choices about planning, investment and the allocation of costs and risks. Attention will be given to how cities make decisions under growing uncertainty and in circumstances where not every risk can be prevented, protected against or insured.
This half-day forum brings together researchers, government officials, practitioners, asset owners and potential funders to identify the research and institutional support needed to scale nature-based solutions in Hong Kong. Rather than a conventional series of presentations, it is designed as a structured dialogue that connects research questions with the practical needs of those who plan, approve, deliver and finance projects.
The forum is organised around two themes: implementing nature-based solutions and developing workable approaches to nature finance. Its intended outcome is an agreed set of priority research and collaboration needs for follow-up after CARE2026.
Hong Kong as a Platform for Practice
While global in scope, CARE2026 is rooted in Hong Kong, a dense coastal metropolis exposed to intensifying climate extremes and deeply interconnected with the Greater Bay Area and Southeast Asia.
Hong Kong operates advanced early warning systems, world-class engineering and slope management, sophisticated infrastructure networks, and a growing green finance and insurance sector. It offers a living platform where scientific insight, operational systems, financial markets, and governance intersect.
CARE sets a structured conference for Hong Kong’s public and private sectors to share their practices, lessons, and forward-looking ideas in tackling climate challenges, while connecting local experience to regional and international dialogue.
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