NEW YORK CITY — International corporations and policymakers descended on New York City for the city’s annual Climate Week and the United Nations General Assembly meetings.
The climate-focused festivities kicked off Sunday afternoon with a heavy emphasis on the theme of time, followed by several corporations and organizations slating climate-related announcements to release on the first full day of the climate action-focused week.
The announcements included a commitment to support a tripling of global nuclear energy capacity, the launch of a national forum of U.S. green banks and a pair carbon removal related commitments.
Here’s a quick rundown of some of Monday’s announcements:
Citi, Goldmans Sachs, others back nuclear energy
The action plan from the United Nations COP28 conference in 2023 included a declaration from 25 countries, including the U.S., to triple global nuclear energy capacity by 2050. To support that goal, 14 financial institutions, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, announced their support for the declaration at a Monday forum hosted by the Net Zero Nuclear initiative at the Rockefeller Center.
John Podesta, President Joe Biden’s senior advisor for international climate policy, gave opening remarks at the event and commended the financiers for taking action and being “committed to meeting the moment.”
“Our collective mission is clear: Nuclear energy is clean energy,” Podesta told attendees. “If we're to ensure a livable planet, build secure sustainable supply chains for clean energy [and] bolster prosperity around the world, we need to make sure that nuclear energy does its part.”
The list of supporting financial institutions also includes Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Ares Management, Bank of America, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Brookfield, Credit Agricole, Guggenheim Securities, Rothschild & Co., Segra Capital Management and Societe Generale.
U.S. green banks launch national partnership
A coalition of U.S. green banks also launched Monday, as green banks — public, quasi-public or nonprofit financial organizations focused on accelerating the clean energy transition — around the country look to share information on how to best combat climate-related risks and solve these problems collectively.
Founding members of the U.S. Green Bank 50 said at a press conference Monday that they had been self-organizing for over a year prior to the launch, sharing information on how they were navigating funding provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The coalition of more than 40 public and nonprofit financial institutions is designed to be a complementary forum to the efforts of the Coalition for Green Capital and a “hub for pure learning,” Kirsten Stasio, CEO of the Nevada Clean Energy Fund, told reporters. CGC received $5 billion from the Environmental Protection Agency and launched the first national green bank in August.
“We see the GB50 as a really important network and partner for CGC in helping to think about how we take that [EPA] funding at a national level and implement it in communities in our respective areas, and leveraging this really incredible capacity [GB50] has,” Stasio said.
Frontier inks novel river liming CO2 removal deal
Frontier — the corporate decarbonization initiative backed by Stripe, Alphabet, Meta, JPMorgan and others — announced a first-of-its-kind offtake agreement with Canadian carbon removal and river restoration company CarbonRun on Monday.
As part of the deal, Frontier’s corporate carbon offset purchasers will pay CarbonRun $25.4 million to have the company remove more than 55,000 tons of carbon dioxide between 2025-29 using a method called “river liming,” according to a release.
River liming involves adding crushed limestone to acidified rivers to help repair acid rain damage; the method has also been found to boost rivers’ ability to take in carbon dioxide from the air, the release said. Frontier said CarbonRun’s technology has a “credible, near-term trajectory” to being able to offer carbon removal for less than $100 per ton.
“River liming for carbon removal is cheap, scalable, and measurable. And yet it’s underexplored and underfunded relative to its potential,” Stripe’s head of climate and Frontier’s lead Nan Ransohoff said in the release. “CarbonRun’s work will help establish the foundation for more rigorous evaluation and measurement of aquatic approaches to carbon removal more broadly.”
Climeworks inks deal with British Airways
Climeworks — a carbon removal company that operates the world’s largest two direct air capture and storage facilities — signed British Airways as its third airline customer, the DAC company announced Monday.
British Airways joins Swiss and Lufthansa Group as the carbon removal company’s aviation sector customers. Climeworks said in the release that the agreement will initially be for a “small volume” but the agreement is designed to “help stimulate and then scale the carbon removal market.”
“There is no pathway to net zero for aviation without carbon removals,” Carrie Harris, British Airways’ director of sustainability, said in the release. “While a small purchase in comparison to our total emissions, we have purchased these carbon removal credits to help stimulate the carbon removals market and help lay the groundwork for the large-scale changes needed to meet our climate goals.”
