New York Climate Week takeaways: Island nations speak up and fossil fuel subsidies come under fire

This week, the fight against climate change took centre stage with Climate Week NYC and the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) running in tandem.

It’s all part of the build up to COP29, the annual UN climate conference which will this year see world leaders descend on Baku, Azerbaijan, in November.

Run by nonprofit Climate Group, Climate Week 2024’s theme ‘It’s Time’ placed the focus squarely on securing a just transition that ensures the benefits of climate action are felt by all.

The cost of climate inaction

Big businesses were urged to weigh short-term economic gain against long-term sustainability.

The societal cost of climate inaction should also guide government regulation of industries, speakers said.

“Two-thirds of workers are impacted by extreme heat - there is a cost associated with this,” said Professor Celeste Saulo, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). 

“What is needed is translating scientific numbers into impact on society. We need to use these numbers to convince other stakeholders that inaction will cost far too much.”

Incentivisation programmes like the EU’s Green Deal and the USA's Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are a step in the right direction.

“Since President Biden took office, private companies have announced more than $425 billion [€381b] in new clean energy projects,” said John Podesta, Senior Advisor for International Climate Policy to the President of the United States. 

“More than $270 billion [€242b] of that has been announced since the IRA, creating more than 330,000 good-paying jobs. Last year, clean energy jobs grew at twice the rate than normal jobs in the economy.”

But businesses need consistency so they can make long-term investment decisions, said Will Jackson-Moore, global sustainability leader at PwC.

Financing loss and damage for developing countries

Nations contributing the least to climate change are still bearing the brunt of it, and Climate Week speakers called for loss and damage funds to be prioritised.

“Diplomacy is good, but it doesn't get you anywhere. The loss and damage fund is unfunded and not properly set up,” said Leo Pinder, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs for the Bahamas.

“We believe that you have to be forceful. Can states be held accountable for perpetuating the climate crisis? I am prepared to go to the Hague and fight this case.”

Sharing the direct impact of warming oceans on his island nation, Pinder said, “Our fish stock is being depleted. This is having a great impact on Bahamians who now don't have a trade. Do we have to retrain them? It’s a legitimate tragedy. The larger countries overlook and don't care but in our country it touches us.” 

US Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii also spoke forcefully on loss and damage, saying recipients of funds should be given the power to choose how to spend them.

“What is the purpose of the loss and damage fund? It is to help, not to establish a particular account and declare victory - it is about helping people,” he said.

Discussing the Pacific Islands, he added, “They are not asking for money to be intermediated. It is not about funding a particular account but instead, it should go to existing programs, existing infrastructure.”

Should fossil fuel companies pay for climate damage?

One way to fund loss and damage and the green transition in low-income countries would be to follow the ‘polluter pays’ principle, some speakers argued.

“The amount of subsidies fossil fuel companies received in one year was $7 trillion [€6.3t]. That would have paid for three years of developing countries' needs to pay for climate change investment needs,” said Laurence Breton, managing director of the European Climate Foundation.

“It should be front and centre - the polluters should be the ones paying,” agreed 

Senator Schatz.

Alongside this, global head of renewable energy for KPMG in Ireland Mike Hayes urged a “global reset” of energy systems.

“We need to talk about the positive - which is ramping up renewables instead of phasing out fossil fuels,” he said. “We also need to think about how public and private can work together - the grid should be a public asset.” 

AI is not the ‘secret sauce’ but it can certainly help

The role of technology in the fight against climate change was also a hot topic during Climate Week.

“We need to start thinking about how AI can help us accelerate the transition and understand the mechanics of renewables development,” said KPMG’s Hayes.

“AI can help with site selection, procurement with renewable options and make the whole process much quicker. It’s not the secret sauce but it can certainly help and is probably going to be centre stage for KPMG at COP.”

Tech has already helped speed up climate adaptation processes, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland, noted: “Fiji needed a nature seawall and we were able to make an application and get it agreed within 12 months, with the help of technology and AI.”

It can also be used to assess whether environmental efforts are effective. Blair Swedeen, global head of net zero and sustainability at Meta, shared how their forest canopy height AI model, developed with the World Resources Institute, can measure the height of any tree in the world.

“This can be used to validate reforestation efforts and carbon credits projects,” he explained.

Addressing the carbon footprint of AI and data centres, he said the tech can even be part of the solution: “Applying AI to novel formulations of concrete [can] reduce the carbon footprint in our data centres… by 40 per cent.”

It can also help improve energy efficiency, said Chief Nokia’s chief corporate affairs officer, Melissa Schoeb: “Since we digitised and used AI for our factory in [smart mobility company] ULU, we increased our output by 250 per cent and kept our energy usage flat.”

Scaling up climate tech will only make it more affordable, said Mark Patel, senior partner of McKinsey. “It's counterintuitive but we will change the odds if we go bigger and faster,” he said. “We've observed the pattern. A 100 per cent increase in the scale of a technology can yield at least a 70 per cent reduction of cost.”