This week, New York City will host many of the world’s leaders and could end up being the largest climate meeting of the year.
New York Climate Week, which kicks off at the same time as the United Nations General Assembly, will include hundreds of events in the hotel rooms of Manhattan, the rooftops of Brooklyn and even on a beach in Queens. Participants will include investors, entrepreneurs, scientists, diplomats, corporate executives and heads of state. There will be an almost uncountable number of sustainability announcements.
Azerbaijan will host a two-week climate summit in November that would normally be the biggest event on the calendar. But COP29 is expected to attract far fewer business executives and bankers than last year’s COP28 event in the financial hub of Dubai. It is difficult for Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, to compete with the scale of what the wealthy United Arab Emirates has organised. Moreover, This year’s UN climate summit promises lower-stakes diplomatic action.
That could mean segments of the business climate movement, whose presence has increased at the COP, will show up in New York this week.
Climate Week will be held on the sidelines of UN deliberations, where ongoing wars are likely to shape the agenda. However, in previous years, the General Assembly meeting has produced impressive climate moments. Chinese President Xi Jinping made a surprise pledge in 2020 to achieve net-zero emissions. Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley emerged as a charismatic advocate for developing nations’ climate finance priorities in a 2022 UN speech.
Mottley will be among world leaders and diplomats appearing at several Climate Week events. Other power players such as former US climate envoy John Kerry and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will take part in the summit.
