NY Climate Week 2024: 5 Key Takeaways

The world’s climate experts, influencers, and changemakers descended on New York City for this year’s largest climate event. With more than 100,000 attendees and 600+ events, Climate Week took over parts of the city with almost a festival-like atmosphere - Climate-chella anyone?

This year’s climate week was significant since fewer corporations will be heading to COP - the UN Climate Meeting in Azerbaijan. With the US elections around the corner and many companies pulling back or hushing up about their commitments, there was more on the line. 

In the chaos of wall-to-wall meetings and getting around the overcrowded city each year, I need to convince myself that Climate Week produces enough action to justify the investment.  

Here are my five takeaways from this year:

1. Regulatory worries: 

Corporations from all sectors are gearing up (many with trepidation) to start reporting climate and sustainability performance in their audited financial statements. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and similar laws around the world are starting to kick in, and the first tranche of companies will report next year.  

Companies are gritting their teeth for a couple of years of compliance chaos before they get their processes right and technology solutions scale to meet the complex problem of sustainability reporting. Many claim that the investment in compliance diverts resources, but the aim is that transparency will drive action.  

2. Realism and practicality: 

Instead of hanging on to the goal of “1.5 degrees,” the new target is “substantially below 2.0 degrees” of warming. There were fewer ambitious and unsubstantiated goals this year and more focus on practical actions. 

3. Voluntary Carbon Markets (VCM) took center stage:

The VCM has been on a steady decline since a $2 billion market high in 2021. So it may come as a surprise that it was featured so highly at New York Climate Week and even got its own day for the first time, “VCM Day,” on Wednesday. 

Despite its criticisms, most think the VCM can turn it around, and new measures can bring renewed validity and authenticity to offsets. Mark Kenber of the VCM accrediting body, the Voluntary Carbon Market Institute, said, “One reason for VCM Day is to show the world that yes, people were right to be concerned about the quality of credits and projects…But we’re now in the next phase of the VCM.”

The Biden administration plan - supported by many of the world’s largest companies - involves coupling climate transition financing in developing nations with the VCM. The overall feeling seems to be that the VCM is here to stay and will be a vital component of global decarbonization strategies, so let's get it right. 

4. Reporting frameworks mature:

New governance was announced for the GHG Protocol - the standard to measure carbon emissions. In addition, CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) is expanding its partnership with the Net-Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) by providing data for more than 10,000 companies - collectively accounting for more than 50% of global GDP - for public access. Michael Bloomberg said, “This new partnership will get us one step closer to…climate data accessible to everyone for free.”

Shocker: we have a new acronym, The Taskforce on Inequality and Social-related Financial Disclosures (TISFD). The TISFD follows in the wake of similar frameworks for climate and biodiversity - the Task Forces for Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) and Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD). The new group will help organizations report on their social impacts.

5. Geopolitical unrest clouds the picture: 

U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres spoke about the growing mistrust between nations hampering our ability to make progress, saying, "International challenges are moving faster than our ability to solve them." 

In an interview with Axios, Al Gore criticized the UN's reliance on unanimity, which hampers progress by giving oil-rich nations a veto. He added that hosting three COPs in a row in petro-states is “really ridiculous."

Agreeing with Gore, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley called for a “reset” of global institutions. Susana Muhamad - Columbia’s environment minister -  added that the issues are deeper than the COP process, saying, "The problem is the vested…economic interests which actually become explicit at the COP process,"

California Sues Oil and Gas Again

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, alleging they misled the public on plastic production. The 147-page lawsuit argues that Exxon’s recyclability claims were untrue and designed to increase its plastic production.

Bonta, who has already sued Exxon and four other oil and gas companies last year alleging climate deception, said, “It’s time ExxonMobil is held accountable.” The lawsuit seeks an injunction on Exxon’s plastics claims and seeks damages to go into an abatement fund.

Exxon clapped back when company spokesperson Lauren Knight said, “For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective... They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others.”

Nuclear Support Grows

Two new announcements this week may signal a nuclear renaissance. The first is a pledge from 14 of the world's largest financial institutions to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, making good on an agreement from COP28. The turnaround normalizes the return of nuclear power as a legitimate and necessary part of the low-carbon energy transition. 

The other signal came from Microsoft, in collaboration with Constellation Energy, announcing a plan to reopen Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island nuclear plant. The plant was shut down in 2019 but will now reopen in 2028 to provide Microsoft’s data centers with low-carbon energy for decades. Constellation chief executive Joe Dominguez said, “The decision here is the most powerful symbol of the rebirth of nuclear power as a clean and reliable energy source.” 

ISSB Guidance for Voluntary Reporting

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) issued guidance to help voluntary reporters use their reporting standards.

While more than 20 countries are adopting ISSB standards for mandatory reporting, the guide aims to support voluntary reporters. ISSB Chair Emmanuel Faber said, “The voluntary application guide helps companies…provide decision-useful, assurable financial information to investors.”

Meanwhile, the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) issued new standards aligned with ISSB, which will be effective starting August 2025 for public companies and large financial institutions. Roy Leung, President of HKICPA, said, “(the standards) are crucial in aligning Hong Kong’s sustainability reporting with the global baseline.”

The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer. 

Other Notable News:

• New research reveals that Earth may now have breached seven of nine planetary boundaries. Previous planetary health checks breached 6, but this year’s adds one more: ocean acidification. 
• Singapore’s market regulator SGX RegCo released an update on their ISSB-aligned sustainability reporting mandate requirements. The main change came in pushing back Scope 3 reporting for smaller companies.
• One often overlooked part of ESG is disabilities, but a new host of EU regulations aim to improve disability inclusion. This new report sums up the new requirements for companies to comply with new disability accessibility requirements in the EU.
• New research from my company, BCG, finds that the cost of climate inaction outweighs climate action. Business as usual climate change could cost as much as 22% of global GDP, whereas just 2% cumulative GDP investment in climate solutions could avoid most of that economic loss.  
• The EU proposed an EU Flight Emissions Label (FEL) that would make airlines tell customers about the emissions of their flights. 
• Australia’s market regulator fined asset manager Vanguard 12.9 million Australian dollars for misleading sustainable investment claims.
• The architect of Project 2025, Kevin D. Roberts (The policy blueprint for a potential Trump administration), was interviewed at NY Climate Week, where he described climate change as “It sounds like weather to me, a hot year.”
• Another new BCG report released at Climate Week was about how climate mobility is shaped by access to water and water-related disasters. 

Notable Podcasts: 

• In this week’s edition of Outrage and Optimism, the podcast team is joined by Amazon CSO Kara Hurst to celebrate the fifth year of the Climate Pledge (Amazon co-founded the pledge). They discuss how The Climate Pledge, which commits signatories to net zero by 2040, ten years ahead of the Paris Agreement, has grown to over 500 members.
• This week’s The Climate Rising podcast is the third edition of their climate communication series. It features an interview with Sam Read , the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance, a consortium of major studios and streamers, including Disney, Netflix, and Warner Brothers. He discusses his insights and next practices for making climate-related alliances and collaborations.

Notable Jobs:

• Senior Associate, Client Solutions, Re:Co Insights, London, UK
• Environmental Analyst, Meta, San Francisco, CA
• Net Zero Program Manager, US Bank, New York, NY
• Climatech Investor / Advisor, IOTA Labs, New York, NY
• Climate Business Strategist, Abt Global, Durham, NC
• Senior Associate, Climate & Nature, J. Crew, New York, Hybrid
• Sustainability Account Executive, Watch Wire by Tango, Dallas, TX, Hybrid