Change now rests on the shoulders of giants

After my first New York Climate Week, I’m struck most of all by the contrast: ?the contrast between those who turned up, and those who didn’t. Those who are mobilising to drive the change we need to see, contrasted with the absence, and seeming apathy, of many of the big powers and polluters. ?

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In a week of early mornings and late nights, I met and joined events with Indigenous leaders, youth activists, artists, business leaders, scientists, and NGOs, philanthropists, investors - all resolute in finding a pathway for a better future. The energy, determination, and passion of those who gathered from around the world, from across all sectors of society, was palpable.??

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I was inspired by the 70,000 people who marched in New York on Sunday, demanding an end to fossil fuels, by?climate justice activists like Kevin Chand , Vanessa Nakate and Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim ;?by the businesses leading the way in transitioning to Net Zero;?by the leaders of Small Island Developing States who provide the moral leadership and authority that we so sorely need. If there’s one speech you should read from the Climate Ambition Summit, make it?this one?by Prime Minister of Samoa, the Honourable Fiamē Naomi Mata’afa, AOSIS Chair where she stated: ?“As SIDS, our contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is less than one percent. ?The G20 is responsible for 80% of emissions… our small islands are being ravaged and bearing the terrible burden of the bigger countries’ pursuit of profit over the well-being of our people…”

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Meanwhile we saw leadership, too, from city leaders such as the Mayor of London, Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan , and Mayor of Freetown, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr OBE . ?And Gavin Newsom , Governor of California, who is using both litigation and legislation to hold Big Oil to account, and drive greater corporate accountability. ?

But leaders from the USA, China, India, Japan and the UK were conspicuous by their absence, signalling an indifference to the urgent challenge facing the world, to the devastation wrought on vulnerable communities around the world. ?And UK PM?Rishi Sunak’s announcement, on the day of the Climate Ambition Summit, that the UK Government is scaling back its climate ambition was beyond belief; ?undermining the last vestiges of climate leadership that so many worked so hard to build for so long. ?

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As for the Summit itself, there was a marked lack of practical plans and concrete action to deliver on the focus of ‘ambition, credibility and implementation’. Without powerful states at the table, and with concrete action plans and finance to deal with the challenge of our age, the prospects for the urgent change we need are bleak.?

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With COP28 just a few weeks out, it is critical that all countries reflect properly on the recent Global Stocktake report and what that means for their own emissions reduction plans, so that the outcomes of COP28 are both credible and actionable. We need leadership from the giants now - from those who bear the most responsibility - to slash emissions by half in 7 years, provide the finance needed for mitigation, adaptation, and loss and damage, and to restore trust by turning ambition into action. ??