Highlights from Climate Week NYC 2025

Speaking last week at Climate Forward, an annual event hosted by The New York Times as part of Climate Week NYC, Bill McKibben, founder of climate advocacy group Third Act, painted a vivid portrait of America’s energy future and China’s rapid advances in the fields of renewables and electric vehicles. In stark contrast to the world’s first “electro-state,” McKibben said, “the US,” if present “petro-state” policies continue, “will [soon become] the Colonial Williamsburg of energy, where the rest of the world will come to gawk at how things were done in the olden days.”

Over the years, Climate Week NYC has become one of the largest annual gatherings of policymakers, business leaders, researchers, journalists, and advocacy groups focused on environmental action and energy innovation. For this reason, it serves as a useful barometer of where policy and industry conversations are headed. Unlike, say, the UN climate talks, Climate Week NYC is not a formal negotiating platform. However, its panels, events, and announcements often preview the topics and themes that will prevail in public discourse and guide legislative priorities over the coming years. This year, those themes that look set to dominate in 2026 include clean energy financing, resilience planning, and corporate accountability. For state officials, Climate Week therefore provides an early opportunity to understand and position themselves within the broader energy and environmental policy agendas and discussions.

States are Essential

McKibben’s dire (and perhaps dramatic) prognostication underscored an important theme running through this year’s Climate Week, as CSG East observed while attending several events among hundreds on offer in New York City. Listening to leaders in business, tech, politics, academia, and civil society, we learned about the latest energy and environmental efforts, policies, and innovations currently being deployed or developed to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century.

Between presenters and events, solutions to our current climate and energy problems varied considerably. Yet, in presentation after presentation, many of this year’s speakers issued similar responses to US federal policy with explicit calls for local, state, and provincial action. As Manish Bapna, President and CEO of the Natural Resources Defense Council, observed, “work at the state level is absolutely essential.”

“50 States, 50 Fixes”

At The Times Center, calls for state and provincial action coincided with the The New York Times’ launch of “50 States, 50 Fixes” an ongoing series comprising a collection of “stories of people, groups, organizations, strategies or innovations that are fixing environmental problems, from the state level down to the backyard,” which seeks to highlight at least one significant effort in each US state to address energy or environmental challenges. Examples from the series include highway capping and wildlife crossing projects in Colorado that reduce car collisions with wildlife by 80%; the so-called “Dark Sky” ordinance in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which puts streetlights on a dimmer to curb light pollution and save energy; Delaware’s innovative use of natural minerals to protect oyster populations in vulnerable coastal areas; and Michigan’s deployment of satellites and drones to use land and fertilizer more strategically and minimize the need for treating crops with chemicals.

Certainly, “50 States, 50 Fixes” serves as a corrective to the longstanding negativity bias often shared by journalism and climate coverage. However, it also offers an illuminating collection of solutions from which states might draw inspiration from each other. As Katie Burke, writing for the Association of Health Care Journalists, notes of the series, “Celebrating wins, even small ones, inspires progress and offers examples for other communities to follow. At a time when national policy action on climate is sliding backward in many ways and global progress is slow, communities across the nation are making strides every day.”

Time Is of the Essence

The most important message delivered at Climate Forward was that there is still much to be done, and fast. Few summed up the general feeling better than André Corrêa do Lago, President of COP30, when he observed that “Urgency” is the word that best captures both our present moment and the need for immediate action. “The things we do today will have a much bigger impact than what we do ten years from now.” In the name of urgency, do Lago gestured hopefully at each state’s executive branch and, in particular, state governors. Speaking of those governors who have signaled a willingness to confront global warming, for instance, do Lago concluded, “if you can get [them] on board, you get 60%-70% of US GDP” behind the changes needed to address climate change.

“Cross-Border Currents”

Next, we attended “Cross-Border Currents: Insights into the Future of US-Canada Energy Dynamics,” which was hosted by the Arther L. Irving Institute for Energy and Society at Dartmouth and the Lawson Climate Institute at the University of Toronto. Among the day’s speakers, including former US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, a consensus emerged that despite geopolitical headwinds, there is ample opportunity for states and provinces to collaborate in the areas of nuclear power, critical minerals, and more.

One example that received sustained attention at both Climate Forward and this event was GE Vernova’s plans to build the first BWRX-300 small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) at the Darlington nuclear site in Ontario, Canada. The project represents a significant milestone as the first operational SMR in the western world.

“This historic achievement in small modular reactor technology is more than a milestone, it’s a clear signal that we are ready to meet the moment. As we build toward a more holistic energy future, this achievement with the BWRX-300 shows how innovation in nuclear can deliver reliable, baseload, zero-carbon power generation,” said Scott Strazik, CEO, GE Vernova. “As we confront the challenges of increased demand, energy security and carbon intensity, this milestone reaffirms our commitment to innovation and a more sustainable energy future.”

Other Highlights

This year’s Climate Week offered other memorable highlights that drew participation from hundreds of organizations, private sector players, researchers and government stakeholders—even against political headwinds at the national level. One standout series was Axios House, which hosted deep-dive conversations across three days on energy transition, clean power (especially nuclear), the intersection of finance and climate risk, corporate responsibility, and AI’s role in driving future energy demand.

Meanwhile, the MIT Innovation Showcase shined a spotlight on emerging breakthroughs in carbon removal, energy storage, and low-carbon mineral strategies, providing a bridge between cutting-edge lab ideas and market-facing startups.

As a compliment to these tech-forward events, the Food Tank / American Farmland Trust “Keeping Farms on the Land” Summit reminded participants that climate solutions must also begin with the very basic: our soil. Discussions ranged from agrivoltaics to soil health and featured policymakers, farmers, and sustainability executives.

On the policy and finance front, the Nest Climate Campus occupied a central stage over the week, bringing together speakers from corporate clean economy strategies to climate investment and just transitions. Notably, Ceres’ “Championing the Clean Economy” underscored for a large audience how businesses are increasingly embedding climate risk into their investment practices—even in politically volatile times.

In parallel, Pure Strategies ran multiple hands-on workshops and panels to aid corporate actors in strengthening nature assessments, designing circular packaging models, and maintaining climate momentum amid uncertainty.

Yale University also put on a strong program with its two-day “Yale @ Climate Week NYC,” which featured over twenty sessions connecting academic research, climate tech entrepreneurship, and scalable impact strategies.

Together, these events wove together a narrative of urgency, cross-sector collaboration, and technology-plus-nature framing that promises to carry momentum into the upcoming COP cycle. Ultimately, as UN Climate Chief Simon Stiell urged those pursuing climate and energy progress at all levels of government, it is time to match promises with action: “This new era of climate action must be about bringing our [progress] closer to the real economy.”