Geneva/Antalya, 17 September 2026—The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Insurance Association of Türkiye (TSB) will co-host the flagship COP31 Global Sustainable Insurance Summit on 13-14 November 2026 at the Insurance House during the UN Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Türkiye.
Under the theme, “The Climate Resilience Imperative,” the summit will bring together global insurance and financial leaders, businesses, policymakers, regulators, UN agencies, academia and civil society to explore how insurers—as risk managers, risk carriers and investors—can catalyze climate resilience across multiple levels of the economy—from assets, projects, firms and sectors; to the broader financial system and macroeconomy.
“More frequent and severe floods, cyclones, wildfires, heatwaves and droughts are driving escalating economic losses that disrupt households and businesses, widen insurance protection gaps, and threaten overall financial stability. When assets become uninsurable, they can become unbankable and uninvestable, sending shockwaves through the entire economy,” said Butch Bacani, Head of Insurance at UNEP. “We cannot simply react to damage anymore. This summit will examine how the insurance industry can work together with the public and private sectors, harnessing its specialized capabilities to assess, quantify, reduce, and carry climate risk. By deploying these unique tools, the industry can incentivize upfront resilience investments before disaster strikes, helping communities, cities and countries build a shield against future climate shocks.”
The two-day summit will feature the global launch of the UN Principles for Sustainable Insurance (PSI) white paper, “From Vulnerability to Insurability”. Additionally, it will cover a range of key topics to drive systemic resilience—from valuing and rewarding resilience, partnering for future-ready cities and countries, and safeguarding micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs); to underwriting the climate-nature nexus, managing climate-related health risks, closing the climate data gap, and derisking and investing in the low-carbon economy.
“COP31 cannot just be another conference about climate ambition—it must be about immediate implementation. The insurance industry is uniquely positioned to help build resilient communities and economies amid intensifying physical climate risks,” said Özgür Obalı, Secretary-General of TSB. “The summit will highlight how to turn ambition into practical solutions through loss prevention, risk reduction, closing insurance protection gaps, and derisking and unlocking capital for resilience investments. The Turkish insurance industry is proud to partner with UNEP and looks forward to welcoming the global insurance and financial community, businesses, policymakers, regulators, academia and civil society to the Insurance House in Antalya.”
The summit builds on the momentum generated by the COP30 Global Sustainable Insurance Summit last year in Belém, Brazil convened by UNEP and the Brazilian Insurance Confederation (CNseg).