Climate Week NYC 2024: A Preview

As the United Nations General Assembly meets in New York City this week, hundreds of events take place under the umbrella of Climate Week NYC, running the gamut from invite-only corporate gatherings to climate justice summits, from FEMA officials to DEI officers. The opening ceremonies yesterday featured Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), White House climate envoy John Podesta, and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, alongside corporate executives and international climate officials.

The U.S. Climate Politics Almanac offers this brief guide to a very small selection of the happenings, with a special interest in U.S. elected officials and political activism.

A major theme is the growth in investment in renewable energy and climate solutions alongside the ongoing fight to divest from fossil finance and hold the fossil-fuel industry accountable in the courts. .

9 AM: Climate Group
It’s Time For a New Era of Climate Leadership and Ambition

The Climate Group’s main events, with live attendance limited, are livestreamed and include Gov. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).

9 AM: The Climate Hub and We Don’t Have Time
Vote Climate

The Climate Hub and We Don’t Have Time, run by Sweta Chakraborty, have a full agenda of livestreamed events with limited in-person attendance. Speakers include Harris for President climate organizer Camila Thorndike and Rev. Lennox Yearwood.

10 AM: Summer of Heat Coalition
Citi Standoff: Come Down or Shutdown
Citi HQ, 388 Greenwich St.

About 50 community members in the fight against fossil fuel expansion in the Gulf will approach Citi headquarters in hopes of finally sitting down face to face with Citi leadership after a summer of protests.

12 PM: Grist, Mother Jones, Rewiring America, and the Tishman Environment & Design Center
Better Worlds Ahead: Realizing Our Brighter Climate Futures
Tishman Auditorium (University Center), 63 5th Ave

Stacey Abrams of Rewiring America and Urban Ocean Lab’s Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson will discuss what climate success could look like, the subject of Johnson’s new book, What If We Get It Right? This event has reached capacity. You can join the waitlist here.

5:30 PM: Canary Media and the Pew Charitable Trusts
Climate Night Live
The Greene Space, 44 Charlton Street

Canary Media’s Maria Gallucci hosts John Kerry, climber Alex Honnold, Department of Energy official Jigar Shah, and others for a panel discussion and party. Event has reached capacity.

6 PM: Climate Cabinet, Evergreen, Data for Progress, World Resources Institute, National Council of Environmental Legislators
Climate Happy Hour: Progress No Matter What
7 Rivington Street

A party organized by organizations working to elect climate hawks at the local level and support a Green New Deal agenda. National Climate Advisor Ali Zaidi, Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash, DOE Acting Principal Deputy Director Keishaa Austin, former NY DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos, and Michigan Chief Climate and Energy Strategist Kara Cook will be in attendance. The event has reached capacity.

6 PM: New York City Bar
The Professional Duty of Lawyers and Bar Associations in Action on Climate
New York City Bar Association, 42 West 44th Street

Speakers include Camila Bustos, co-founder of Law Students For Climate Accountability, Alasdair Cameron, the climate change policy adviser for the Law Society of England and Wales, Georgina Beasley, CEO of the Net Zero Lawyers Alliance, and many other prominent environmental-law leaders from around the world.

Tuesday, September 24

9 AM: Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law
Climate Change and the Courts
Lipton Hall, NYU School of Law, 108 West Third Street

Charity Clark, the Vermont Attorney General, keynotes this morning session. Speakers include EarthJustice’s Kirti Datla, Director of Strategic Legal advocacy, Our Children’s Trust general counsel Mat dos Santos, and Don Goodson, deputy director of the Institute for Policy Integrity.

9:30 AM: Third Way
Clean Energy Industrial Strategy, American Style
124 E 14th St

Canary Media’s Maria Gallucci will again be speaking with Jigar Shah, as well as CalPERS Sustainable Investments director Travis Antoniono and others, at this event sponsored by the corporate lobbying group Third Way.

11 AM: TIAA-Divest!
TIAA Exposed Rally
730 Third Ave

TIAA, the $ 1.2 trillion pension fund that serves universities, medical professionals, non-profits, and cultural institutions, has $78 billion invested in fossil fuels, is one of the biggest investors in Adani coal, and is responsible for land grabs and massive deforestation in Brazil. Bill McKibben and local activists who have working to expose TIAA’s injustices are rallying outside TIAA’s headquarters.

1 PM: Rise Light and Power, WE ACT for Environmental Justice, NAACP NYCHA
Climate Justice Forum: Building the Green Energy Future with Frontline Communities
MoMA PS1, Queens

An afternoon conference with a who’s who of the climate justice movement, including Peggy Shepard, executive director of WE ACT for Environmental Justice; Lynn Spivey, president of the NAACP NYCHA Branch; Clint Plummer, CEO of Rise Light & Power; Theodore Moore, executive director of ALIGN NY; State Sen. Jessica Ramos, chair of the State Senate Committee on Labor; and many more.

Brenda Mallory, chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, is offering the closing keynote.

1 PM: Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability, Harvard University
Harvard at Climate Week
Harvard Club, 35 W 44th

Elizabeth Kolbert and Holly Jean Buck discuss solar geoengineering; Carrie Jenks, and Daniel Jacob methane pollution; and Cathy Feingold and José Garcia heat and labor.

1:30 PM: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 2 and Fordham University
Investing in America for Climate
McNally Amphitheater, Gabelli School of Business, 140 W 62nd St

Lisa F. Garcia, New York’s EPA Regional Administrator and four other regional administrators discuss the billions of dollars of EPA programs supported by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act funding.

6 PM: Climate Defiance
Climate Week Benefit

Abigail Disney hosts a benefit for Climate Defiance in the Upper West Side.

7 PM: Summer of Heat, Climate Rights International, and Indigenous Environmental Network
The Growing Criminalization of Climate Activism in Western Democracies
320 West 37th Street

Join Brad Adams, executive director at Climate Rights International, Alice Hu, New York Communities for Change, Nina Lakhani, senior climate justice reporter, Guardian US), Kumi Naidoo, former international executive director of Greenpeace International and Secretary General of Amnesty International, and Marcello Federico, divestment organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, for an open and in-depth discussion on the future of climate activism as western democracies are now responding to civil disobedience and peaceful protests by climate activists with disproportionate penalties and harsh new laws.

Wednesday, September 25

8 AM: The New York Times
Climate Forward Summit
242 W. 41st St

New York Times climate reporter David Gelles hosts Gov. Roy Cooper (D-N.C.), Ali Zaidi and Michael Regan, oil CEO Vicki Hollub, Project 2025 climate denier Kevin Roberts, climate scientists Stefan Rahmstorf and Michael Oppenheimer, and corporate executives in a mash-up of climate and energy conflicts.

9 AM: Climate Hawks Vote
Petition Delivery to The New York Times Opposing Climate Denier Kevin Roberts
242 W. 41st St

Climate Hawks Vote is protesting the participation of climate denier Kevin Roberts at the Climate Forward Summit.

10 AM: Extreme Weather Survivors, Union of Concerned Scientists, and Center for Climate Integrity
The Storytellers Demanding Accountability
Tribeca Screening Room, 375 Greenwich Street #2

Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity, Delta Merner, the lead scientist for climate litigation at the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Chris Kocher, co-executive director of the new group Extreme Weather Survivors, host a panel with survivors of climate disasters from Arizona, North Carolina, Vermont, and Texas.

12 PM: Climate and Community Institute
Shared Fates: A Housing Policy Vision for the Home Insurance Crisis
447 Broadway 2nd floor

The Guardian’s Dharna Noor, moderates Hill Heat contributor and Climate Cabinet advisor Jordan Haedtler, Climate and Community Institute’s Moira Birss and HousingNOLA’s Andreanecia Morris to discuss CCI’s new report on the carbon-fueled home insurance crisis.

12 PM: World Climate Foundation
World Climate Summit, New York Edition
849 6th Ave

Held annually, the World Climate Summit is an ongoing corporate side event for the international climate talks. Speakers this year include Jake Levine, the climate and energy advisor on the National Security Council.

7 PM: Lead Locally, Oil Change U.S., NYC-DSA Ecosocialists, the Green New Deal Network, Climate & Community Institute
Brats for a Green New Deal Happy Hour
119 East 15th Street

Green New Dealers Claire Valdez, running for NY-37, and Zohran Mamdani, running for NY-36, are among the featured guests at this happy hour for climate activists.

7 PM: New York Society for Ethical Culture
The Language of Climate Politics in the 2024 Election
Adler Hall, 2 W 64th Street

Genevieve Guenther, author of the new book The Language of Climate Politics, speaks with climate journalists Kendra Pierre-Louis, Bill McKibben, and Amy Westervelt.

Thursday, September 26

1 PM: Debt For Climate, LEGAIA, Planet Over Profit, and NYCC
BlackRock Cancel the Debt For Climate Justice Rally
Bella Abzug Park, 542 W 36th St.

Activists are demanding debt cancellation and defunding of fossil fuels at BlackRock headquarters.

3:30 PM: The Influencer Lab for Tomorrow, Fossil Free Media, and Cuíca
Love & Rage: Telling the full story of our new extreme weather reality
22 East 60th Street #1077

A panel discussion for how journalists, content creators and social influencers can connect climate disasters to the fossil fuel companies that brought us the climate crisis, followed by a happy hour to celebrate the launch of TILT, a new network to support influencers and content creators to speak effectively and authoritatively about climate change. Also supported by the Fossil Fuel Non-proliferation Treaty Initiative, The YEARS Project, Climate Power, Climate Access and Impacts US.