International Seminar on Culture and Climate Change
What role does culture play in responding to the climate crisis? How do we build the conditions for it to play that role at speed and scale?
This high-level seminar convenes policymakers, artists, creatives, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and activists to explore how culture shapes collective imagination, strengthens social cohesion, and mobilises societies to take action.
COP30 showed that a new model of global response is emerging beyond negotiation rooms. Culture was designated a key objective of the Action Agenda, a recognition that climate action depends not only on policy but also on the coalitions, movements, public participation, and artistic practice that can mobilise society. Building those connective structures across sectors, initiatives, and networks is now an urgent task.
The programme elevates emerging debates at the culture-climate nexus, bringing together global voices who recognise culture not simply as a sector, but as the fabric through which societies make sense of a changing world, share values, inspire collective agency, and create the conditions for climate action to take root.
Hosted by the Ministry of Culture of Brazil in partnership with the COP30 Presidency, People's Palace Projects at Queen Mary University of London, Julie's Bicycle, the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at University College London, the Embassy of Brazil in London and Instituto Guimarães Rosa, and Volans.
Building on seminars held at the G20 Culture Ministers' Meeting and COP30, this London edition is part of a wider international series, with the next edition at São Paulo Climate Week in August 2026.
The evening will close with networking and light refreshments.
Confirmed speakers:
Ambassador André Corrêa do Lago, President of COP30
Es Devlin CBE, artist and stage designer
Louis VI, rapper, musician, zoologist, filmmaker, and founder of Nature Ain’t a Luxury
Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at UCL and founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)
Sonia Guajajara, Federal Deputy and Brazil’s former Minister of Indigenous Peoples
Professor Tim Lenton OBE, Founding Director of the Global Systems Institute and Chair in Climate Change and Earth System Science, University of Exeter
More speakers to be announced soon.
Please note: this is a guest event. A limited number of seats are open to the public.