Greater Fort Lauderdale’s waterways, beaches and year-round outdoor life are central to its appeal. They also make resilience a pressing local priority. Rising seas, intense rainfall, extreme heat and severe weather can affect homes, businesses, infrastructure and the visitor experience. Preparing for those challenges helps protect the community while keeping the region a vibrant place to live and visit.
From November 4–6, 2026, Broward County will host the 18th Annual Southeast Florida Climate Leadership Summit at the newly expanded Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale. Under the theme “Capitalizing on Climate: Action Through Innovation,” the summit will bring together leaders from government, business, academia and nonprofits to explore practical solutions and opportunities for regional growth.
The three-day program begins with Innovation Day on November 4. Discussions will examine how sensors, robots and drones can help communities gather information and manage resources. Another session will explore how artificial intelligence could support infrastructure and resilience efforts. Showcases featuring collegiate and emerging companies will give attendees a look at ideas taking shape now.
On November 5, the focus turns to partnerships and the challenges communities already face. A session on regional water resilience will examine how agencies coordinate their approaches across jurisdictional lines. Another will address extreme heat as a public health concern and consider ways communities can respond. The day will also spotlight efforts by marine, sports and manufacturing organizations, including a discussion featuring the Marine Industries Association of South Florida.
These topics matter in Greater Fort Lauderdale, where waterways support recreation, tourism and marine businesses, and where residents and visitors spend much of their time outdoors. Resilience can mean planning for flooding, finding ways to reduce exposure to heat and making sure essential systems can serve the community as conditions change. It takes sustained work across public agencies, neighborhoods and industries.
The summit’s final day looks at how to fund that work. Sessions will cover land use, long-term investment strategies and ways to finance large-scale resilience projects. A discussion with private-sector leaders will examine how resilience influences infrastructure, development standards, careers and housing affordability. See agenda here.
The event is the flagship gathering of the Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact, a partnership formed by Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties in 2009. Its regional approach reflects a simple reality: water, weather and economic connections cross county lines. Working together gives communities a stronger foundation for responding to shared challenges.
For Greater Fort Lauderdale, hosting the summit is an opportunity to bring those conversations close to home. The ideas discussed there can help shape a future in which residents, businesses and visitors continue to enjoy everything that makes this coastal destination distinctive.
Learn more and register at Broward.org/Climate/Summit2026.
This story was originally published by TravelHost on Sep 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the Fort Lauderdale section. Add TravelHost as a Preferred Source by clicking here.