Exclusive: Climate Change reacts to Climate Week NYC
My name is Climate Change, but my friends call me CC.
Dear Climate Professionals:
My name is Climate Change, but my friends call me CC. I know we aren’t friends. You’ve made it clear that you dislike my work to disrupt, destabilize and eventually destroy your human world — and are working stubbornly to stop me.
How’s that going, by the way?
Well, I won’t beat around the bushfire — I heard about Climate Week NYC. How couldn’t I? For weeks, my LinkedIn feed was bombarded with posts of people posing with selfies from New York that screamed: “I’m kind of a big deal — people know me.”
Let’s be real — you’ll never be as big of a deal as I. Who else could inspire 100,000 humans to fly in carbon-burning planes (thanks for the GHGs, BTW) to descend on New York City for a week of exclusive meetings, panels, happy hours and even discos to talk about ME?
But what was it all for? Did you come up with a plan to stop me? Perhaps some consultants closed a few deals, while a few Chief Sustainability Officers built their status as thought leaders and some companies signaled to their customers that they care about the planet in hopes of pushing more product? While you were out there having a grand time, I was busy with my ongoing work powering destructive hurricanes, fueling extreme heat and exacerbating global conflict.
While I won’t pretend to be a “good guy”, I do believe in a fair fight and I’m starting to wonder if you’re even trying. I’ve been warming this world for well over a century — and you’ve known about it for almost half that time. Your scientists have already confirmed that I’m a big deal, yet many of you still act as if I’m not real. You continue to go about business-as-usual like a chain smoker who knows they will get cancer but just can’t quit.
Out of curiosity, I solicited some sustainability professionals who attended Climate Week NYC for an informal feedback survey, and here are some of the highlights:
“Too much BS talk and little action.”
“It was a hot mess with multiple conversations about climate risk all happening in different locations at different times.”
“I disliked being triple booked and living in constant FOMO.”
“As to be expected, a lot of sales pitches disguised as learning sessions/panels.”
“Most people and organizations are there for personal gain, selling their ideas or building their network. The climate is not centered. Nature seems to be the least important stakeholder.”
“Its inward-looking nature and the same talking heads on panels saying nothing nobody already knows.”
Everyone seemed to have a good time at Climate Week NYC yet everyone also seemed to hate themselves for it.
But I think it might be something deeper. Perhaps it’s not Climate Week NYC that you loathe — but the realization that, deep down, you know that corporations aren’t going to volunteer their way out of the hot mess they are largely responsible for making; it’s the internal conflict about whether you’ve been on the right side of history all along; and the frustration of knowing that you have many of the tools you need to stop me yet you can’t muster the political will to take collective action and use them.
Is humanity capable of changing before I alter the planet forever? I don’t know. But you shouldn’t throw in the towel just yet.
Some of your actions have actually thwarted my progress even if just a tad. Without clean energy technologies, for example, the global increase in carbon dioxide emissions in the last five years would have been three times larger, according to your International Energy Agency. And most of you actually recognize me as a problem and want to act to stop me.
In reality, you — not I — are your own worst enemies. You continue to divide yourselves in ways that aren’t conducive to long term peace or prosperity, allow a small group of incredibly wealthy people to control the fate of billions and refuse to get political despite the fact that policy change is the only way to create the conditions that rein in the worst attributes of capitalism while unleashing private sector innovation.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying that Climate Week NYC and other gatherings are a complete waste of time. Fostering a spirit of togetherness and exchanging of ideas will be critical in your work to stop me. But enough with the elitism and exclusivity! Stopping me will require tapping into the combined spirit of sustainability and latent potential of every human on this planet — not just a few folks who went to Harvard.
Sincerely yours,
CC
This originally appeared in the October 2024 ENGAGE newsletter. Subscribe to have articles like this and other sustainability communication content delivered directly to your inbox each month.