Major political and economic forces are changing climate action. We’re looking at three trends emerging from Climate Week NYC and Climate Group’s work.
Part 2: Businesses and governments are experimenting with new ways of talking about climate action.
The big surprise from Climate Week NYC is that leaders are talking a lot less about the US President than you’d expect.
But they are taking note of a populist pushback on climate and citizens’ concerns in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis.
See how the action unfolded on the ground in New York
At a high-level session Climate Group co-hosted with the Global Renewables Alliance, the EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, and businesses led by Australian mining firm Fortescue were pushing the discussion of “clean energy abundance” – the prospect of hugely plentiful, cheap energy coming to the world.
It’s the next phase of the energy transition – and a very purposeful shift from talk of bans and ‘net zero by 2050’. There is a new focus now on promise and profit – with deep decarbonisation almost as a side effect.
Ed Miliband, the UK’s Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and his Danish counterpart, Lars Aagaard, spoke separately at Climate week NYC about how they had to convince people that going green will see improved services, living conditions, futures. “We’re in the better lives-business,” said Miliband.
Philip Davis, Prime Minister of the Bahamas, made a plea to put more money into better communications. Even just a small proportion of what we spend on new energy projects could be transformational, he said.
These shifts in approach are promising, but it’s going to need a concerted effort from leaders – backed by more investment from clean business interests – to overcome the naysayers.
Companies, overwhelmingly, are powering on.
But their language is changing too. We do see some code-switching to words that are less politically loaded in certain territories. But the discussion is also now much more about the here and now which comes with less risk of pushback either for greenwashing or from populists.
There’s less performative comms – and a new, intentional focus on progress and authentic messaging. We think this experimentation with different communication tactics is all for the good.