Harnessing the power of London for global climate action: Reflections on London Climate Action Week 2024

London Climate Action Week (LCAW) has scaled up significantly since its launch in 2019. The annual event is now more than a key milestone in the UK sustainability calendar; it’s a global moment that sees leaders, organisations and communities from across the world descend on London to drive climate action.

Having attended LCAW for a number of years, it was exciting to witness this growth in person at this year’s event and to see the many impactful engagements and breadth of conversation now taking place across the week. Below are some highlights from myself and the City of London sustainable finance team.

Financing the global climate transition

Conversations across the week explored how to develop a robust climate strategy to mobilise finance in the run-up to COP29 and beyond. A highlight was the IEA-COP29 High Level Energy-Transition Dialogue, the second in a series of dialogues taking place ahead of COP29 in November. The London discussion was focused on financing the energy transition, specifically on how we can scale up the clean energy investment needed to deliver global net zero emissions in the energy sector, including for emerging markets and developing economies, (which, despite being home to two-thirds of the world’s population, currently only receive 15% of clean energy investment). Attendees on the day included COP29 President-Designate Mukhtar Babayev and IEA Executive Director Dr Fatih Birol, alongside ministers and climate envoys from many countries. 

More broadly, transition finance was a key focus across events at LCAW, including from the perspective of sustainable infrastructure. At the UK-Saudi Sustainable Infrastructure Summit, policymakers, industry leaders and financial professionals from the UK and Saudi Arabia gathered to discuss the mobilisation of UK-based capital and innovation into Saudi's Vision 2030 infrastructure development. Bridging the substantial investment gap in sustainable infrastructure — projected to grow to $15 trillion globally by 2040— will require a collaborative approach involving (re)insurance, capital markets and innovative financial solutions to mobilise international private sector investment. Discussions therefore highlighted the importance of de-risking capital for emerging technologies, such as vertical farming and hydrogen energy, to achieve net zero targets.

Strengthening global sustainability standards

LCAW started with an exciting step forward in sustainability reporting — an enduring and much-discussed challenge. The International Sustainability Standards Board announced that the IFRS Foundation is taking over responsibility for transition plan disclosure resources developed by the Transition Plan Taskforce, a body announced at COP26 in Glasgow in 2022. This announcement is a big win for harmonising sustainability disclosures and the development of high-quality transition plans worldwide. It is also fantastic to see a UK initiative setting a global baseline in this way and we hope this development will help to speed up the effective flow of climate capital based on the establishment of accurate, reliable and comparable global reporting standards.

Supporting a just transition and strengthening community adaptation and resilience

It was great to see wider recognition that a just transition to a net zero economy requires a fair and even distribution of costs and benefits to global communities, considering the people at the heart of the change. This sentiment was echoed across a range of events, including the City of London Corporation’s  workshop on the role of Venture Capital and Private Equity firms in a just transition in emerging and developing economies. In a similar vein, I was pleased to see more focus on adaptation and resilience across LCAW events this year, further recognising the need for our infrastructure, cities and people to adapt to the changing climate and for significant climate action to be taken at the local level. Discussion also focused on countries’ nationally determined contributions (set to be updated in 2025) and how to build nature and resilience goals into these.

Enabling a nature positive and net zero economy

Given that the World Economic Forum estimates that by 2030 nature loss could see global GDP reductions of £2.1 trillion each year, it was encouraging to see — and support — a growing focus on the natural world at LCAW. The Corporation was delighted to co-host a panel discussion and reception with the World Economic Forum on how nature action can be an impact multiplier in bending the emissions curve, halting and reversing biodiversity loss, whilst also ensuring economic prosperity. Discussion focused on the role of collaboration in avoiding “paper decarbonisation”, as well as the need to unlock more genuinely catalytic capital in this space. Speakers highlighted the encouraging number of impact investment funds in development that address both nature and climate in tandem. Ultimately, however, a system-wide change is needed, and therefore it will be critical to speak not only about nature-based investing, but also the nature of investing.