From 20 to 24 September, CETEx’s Jon Dennis attended Climate Week NYC, engaging in events and supporting CETEx’s Non-Executive chair Chris Skidmore at a number of his key engagements. He reflects on some of the key themes and insights that emerged at these sessions.
The overall mood was relatively positive and pragmatic, with several more seasoned attendees remarking that this year felt different, perhaps a sign that the worst of the pushback against the climate agenda has passed. Nick Mabey, CEO of E3G, pointed to signs of less greenhushing from some leaders this year, following a speech by the COP31 President. JPMorgan used the week to announce its intention to be the “go-to bank” for grid modernisation, partnering with RMI on a new Great American Grid coalition. Notably, JPMorgan’s own framing avoided the word “climate” entirely, describing the initiative instead as an effort to “accelerate interconnection, expand and optimize transmission, and plan for next-generation technologies.”
Climate, security and finance
Across the panels, climate, nature and finance were clearly integrated into wider debates on resilience, national security, economic policy and adaptation, sharpened by the present reality of escalating physical risks. Speaking at the UN General Assembly, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said: “Climate change and nature loss have never been issues for climate and environment ministers alone… They are defining challenges for our citizens, our economies, our foreign policy and our national security.” A panellist from a major UK bank saw opportunity in this narrative shift, arguing that resilience offers a “competitive corporate and financial edge” and should now be “inherent” in any Corporate Sustainability Officer’s remit. Simon Stiell, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, spoke of the need for the transition to be just: “a faster transition must not be a narrower transition… it must include developing countries, workers, communities, women, indigenous, young people and small businesses.”
Electrification
Electrification was a hot topic, particularly at the Climate Implementation Forum and Sustainable Investment Forum, hosted at Fordham University. There were plenty of references to significant global progress on renewables rollout, rising installed capacity, China’s dominance and the 35% by ’35 objective. There were also honest reflections on the bottlenecks to further electrification: cost of capital (and the knock-on cost of living), grid and infrastructure blockages, decoupling from fossil fuel markets and the overall pace of change. “More and more money going into the transition but it’s not happening fast enough,” one panellist said. Francesco La Camera, Director-General of IRENA, reflected that this progress was “global, not regional”, that electrification was the “delivery mechanism” for the transition, and highlighted the “huge gap” in energy efficiency targets.
Who bears the cost of climate risk
On 23 September, Chris Skidmore and Jon Dennis joined a roundtable hosted by CFMRI and Harvard’s Salata Institute, broadly seeking to answer the question: “Who ultimately bears the impact of climate change in the US?” Attendees included major US banks, think tanks and climate experts from US universities. A Harvard professor presented the latest thinking on how the changing distribution of physical climate risk is directly affecting financial markets and the regulatory debate. Climate change is “shifting the mean” of that distribution, increasing the likelihood of extremes and making events harder to predict and account for, a dynamic exacerbated this year by a heightened El Niño. The discussion that followed centred largely on insurance and the built environment, covering building codes, insurance products, second-order impacts such as supply chain disruption, and the role of the state. Blended finance was raised in the context of policy incentives for resilience, such as tax credits, building codes and investible assets. On the “changing math” for the insurance sector, one line stood out: “Policy is too focused on subsidising risk, rather than reducing overall risk.”
Nature finance
Nature and finance featured in the week’s broader panels, though not especially strongly, and were often framed alongside resilience and adaptation. Jon Dennis stepped in for CETEx’s nature colleagues at a Forest Finance event at the UN offices, “Halting and Reversing Deforestation and Forest Degradation by 2030”. The event chaired by Earth Capital Nexus was highly engaged, gathering views from country representatives across environment and finance ministries, including COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago. A UK government representative for nature, stressed that “the door is open” for shaping the UK’s G20 agenda. CETEx was referenced as an important partner during the discussion, with complimentary remarks about the nature team’s work in areas of financial and economy policy.
AI and data centres
Chris Skidmore moderated a Climate Implementation Forum panel on scaling AI, digital and data solutions. Some coverage suggested the climate debate was hijacked by AI. That may overstate it, but AI and data centres were a consistent talking point. Most of the discussion stayed at a high level, light on numbers and precise solutions, and touched on ethics and the implications of rapidly rising energy demand. Two contrasting pathways were debated: one relying on old, polluting infrastructure already facing strong social pushback, and a clean, quiet and renewable alternative, captured in the acronym BEYONCE: “Bring Your Own New Clean Energy”. Carbon market participants were well represented at AI-focused events, a sign of the perceived opportunity.
Transition Finance
The topic of transition finance was a feature of discussion in both implicit and explicit terms during panels of the Sustainable Investment Forum. In his speech at the event titled ‘the next chapter of transition finance’ Chris Skidmore set out his view of the progress, challenges and future areas of opportunity across this thematic. The speech also highlighted CETEx’s knowledge partner role to the newly established Sector Transition Plan Working Group, which is working to develop sector transition plans across the UK economy. A key component of these plans will be the accompanying finance plans, led by CETEx, which aim to provide “the additional confidence and clarity to companies” on what a credible sector transition looks like and how to mobilise the capital investment needed to deliver it.
Looking ahead
The insights from New York Climate Week offer an important stepping stone for what comes next for CETEx on the international stage. Looking ahead, the IMF Annual Meetings in Bangkok this October, the Convention on Biological Diversity’s COP17, UN Climate Change Conference COP31 in Türkiye and the emerging G20 debates will all shape the conversation. The debate on sustainable finance is evolving alongside an increasingly complex and changeable political context, but these shared forums continue to offer real opportunities for cross-jurisdictional collaboration and partnership.