Climate Week NYC 2024: It’s Time

By Climate Interactive
October 3, 2024

The theme of this year’s Climate Week NYC was “It’s Time”—time to transition away from fossil fuels and double down on investments in high-impact climate solutions.

During the whirlwind week that brought together an international audience from philanthropy, business, finance, insurance, government, and civil society, members of our team, including Andrew Jones, Katherine Markova, and Megan Ritter, shared their expertise during numerous climate events across New York City.

Prioritizing fossil fuel phase-out

Many of the Climate Week NYC events our team attended focused on the clean energy transition and the potential setbacks posed by the AI revolution. While it is essential to continue advocating for investments in renewable energy, the conversations often overlooked the critical need to phase out fossil fuels.

“A fossil fuel phaseout is necessary to build a healthier, safer, and more just world, and any plausible scenario to meet global climate goals demands dramatic reductions in fossil fuel use, in this decade and beyond.” — Union of Concerned Scientists

In contrast, at an event co-hosted with Confluence Philanthropy and Carbon Tracker at Amalgamated Bank, Climate Interactive Executive Director Andrew Jones led an interactive session highlighting philanthropy’s key role in mobilizing climate action through investments in high-leverage solutions. During the session, participants played out different scenarios in En-ROADS that showed that if we do not phase out fossil fuels, we cannot meet the goal of keeping global temperature increase well below 2°C.

Leveraging climate scenarios to manage risk and contribute to global goals

Global finance continues to fund the expansion of oil and gas production—$6.9 trillion invested since the Paris Agreement—pushing climate goals further out of reach. At the same time, studies such as those conducted by the Bank of England have found that financial institutions, institutional investors, and corporations continue to undervalue climate risk. In a poll conducted during Bloomberg’s Sustainable Finance event at Climate Week NYC, attendees reported that 53% of their companies face challenges with climate risk scenario analysis, and 27% have not even started the process.

Our team is focused on improving the quality of climate risk scenario analysis so that companies can “stop wasting time on scenarios that don’t make sense,” as a financial leader recently shared. To that end, we used En-ROADS throughout the week to elucidate risks and opportunities under a variety of likely climate scenarios, provide clear and tailored pathways to guide strategy and policy, bring transparency and depth to established scenarios (e.g., NGFS, IPCC), and showcase how to best balance individual risks and opportunities while contributing to effective global climate action.

Building capacity in middle income economies

Middle income economies accounted for 67.8% of all greenhouse gas emissions in 2022, and emissions from these economies are growing rapidly, at an average rate of 2.3% per year, compared to -0.4% per year for high income economies. At the same time, many of these countries also face disproportionate impacts from climate change and barriers to economic development, compounding the need for strategic climate leadership from their top decision-makers.

During Climate Week NYC, many organizations brought this important work to the forefront and explored ways to leverage transition finance and build capacity in these markets. Climate Interactive is actively working with our Climate Ambassadors and partner organizations in these economies to provide cutting-edge tools that deliver the most reliable and up-to-date scientific analysis, and targeted, strategic insights that cut through misinformation, highlight the highest-leverage solutions, and inspire leadership to act.

It’s time for everyone to step up and take action. We are prepared to continue delivering the insights decision-makers need to act on high-impact climate solutions that will ensure a future where greenhouse gas emissions are falling rapidly. Will you join us?