Climate Week NYC 2024: Transition plans gain momentum

Climate Week NYC brings together global leaders from business, government, and civil society, to drive climate action.

04 Oct 2024 . 3 min read

Several of our US colleagues joined the summit this year, participating in roundtables and discussing crucial issues like financed emissions, transition finance, ocean investments, and increasing funding for nature.

Below we’ve summarised key themes and takeaways from the sessions we attended.

1. Transition plans gain momentum

As the world rapidly moves towards achieving net zero emissions, transition plans are set to become a must have for maintaining a “licence to operate” within the green economy. Organisations across all industries and sectors, will need to develop clear, credible strategies to align their operations to a net-zero pathway.

The extent to which financial institutions can credibly develop their transition strategies is dependent on the extent to which their clients can credibly develop their own. Therefore, it’s imperative financial institutions support their customers in developing real economy transition plans. In addition, different regions and sectors may require a nuanced approach, and as such data will likely be required to support in assessing transition risk.

2. The role of AI in supporting decarbonisation

While the potential environmental harm of AI has received significant attention, Climate Week NYC took a more balanced approach, focusing on how technology can be part of the solution.

AI tools could play an impactful role in supporting climate action, across areas such as energy, agriculture, and disaster response. AI is already being used to improve renewable energy forecasting in power grids, optimise heating and cooling systems in buildings, and create real-time flood reports from satellite imagery.

3. Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM) could help unlock capital for decarbonisation

Climate Week NYC held its first ever “VCM Day” which emphasised the growing importance of the topic. Due to strained government budgets and limited funds from philanthropy, mechanisms such as voluntary carbon credits could offer a way to allocate significant capital to emerging markets and developing economies.

Despite criticisms, the view from Climate Week was ‘VCMs can turn it around’, as new measures bring renewed validity and authenticity to offsets. The overall feeling seems to be the VCM will be a core component of global decarbonisation.

4. Sustainability disclosure standards are converging

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) standards, created to consolidate and simplify sustainability disclosures, have been adopted by more than half of the world’s economies. ISSB standards help companies meet international disclosure requirements and offer investors a consistent baseline of sustainability-related information to make informed decisions.

The US made great progress regarding sustainability disclosures – G&A found that 93% of Russell 1000 companies published a sustainability report in 2023, with 60% of Russell 1000 reporters following the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), which has now been subsumed by the ISSB.

5. No net zero without nature

Nature has absorbed 54% of human-related carbon dioxide emissions over the past 10 years, but we are losing nature as our ally. As polluting human activities escalate, nature’s capacity to absorb carbon and build resilience is weakening.

We need to move to an integrated approach where carbon is part of nature and a bigger focus of climate-related financing.

Want to know more?

If you want to discuss any of the topics raised at this year’s Climate Week NYC, please reach out to one of our specialists:

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