Greening global trade, the business of climate justice, and a bipartisan path forward will be among the topics covered at YSE-organized events and panels presented as part of a four-day program on scalable and transformative climate solutions hosted by Yale Planetary Solutions during Climate Week NYC.
What are the most effective ways to talk about the link between extreme weather and climate change? How can businesses, in the U.S. and globally, advance climate justice? Is it possible to remake the international trade system so that it becomes a significant driver of sustainability? How can we better align the distinctive approaches to saving forests through carbon markets? What is the best path to advancing bipartisan climate solutions in the current highly polarized U.S. political environment? These are just some of the topics that will be explored at forums and panel discussions organized by the Yale School of the Environment as part of a Climate Week NYC program series on scalable and transformative climate solutions hosted by Yale Planetary Solutions. The four-day program of events will be hosted at the Yale Club in New York City September 24-27.
Currently, only a handful of countries are on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, and many countries that were leading in sustainability goals have fallen behind or stalled, according to the 2024 Environmental Performance Index, published by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which ranks 180 countries on 58 performance indicators. The study illustrates the challenges of reducing emissions in resistant sectors and hard-to-decarbonize industries, said Daniel Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, who took leave from Yale last year to work with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and a group of international thought leaders on developing a comprehensive sustainability agenda for the international trade system. The agenda, known as the Villars Framework for a Sustainable Trade System, includes measurement protocols for greenhouse gas emissions associated with traded goods, and the establishment of an inclusive process for setting sustainability standards.
The need for cross-sector collaboration, high-level synergies, and bold action to address the climate crisis has never been greater.”
“What is increasingly clear is that the key to progress is a structure of incentives for moving the corporate world toward sustainable business models. In this regard, the trade system reforms that have been developed by the Remaking Trade team (embodied in the Framework) could be the critical point of policy leverage required to deliver transformative change,” Esty said.
With momentum building for remaking the trade system, Esty will discuss the most recent developments and trade’s potential to speed and scale the transition to a net-zero future in a session that will feature Okonjo-Iweala, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, and others.
Engaging the business world in climate work includes focusing on the intersection of climate and justice, said Michel Gelobter, executive director of the Yale Center for Environmental Justice, who will be moderating “The Business of Climate Justice” panel in partnership with the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY).
The most severe harms from climate change disproportionally impact underserved communities and vulnerable populations. The Inflation Reduction Act and the Department of Energy’s Justice40 Initiative has opened new opportunities for clean energy investments in low-income communities, and corporations represent an enormous pool of capital with a potential to advance climate justice issues relatively rapidly, noted Professor of Environmental Justice Gerald Torres.
Gelobter added that there is a lot of work happening in this arena as businesses explore the opportunities posed by new ways to power green economies in emerging markets.
“What’s extraordinary about the climate change business world right now is how central justice is to so many business value propositions. There’s widespread recognition that innovation has to encompass communities at the frontlines of climate change because of how much they have to teach us, and how big a market they truly represent,” he said.
Gelobter will delve into this issue with Rachel Payne, portfolio director at X, Alphabet's Moonshot Factory; Tracey Osborne, associate professor and endowed presidential chair in the Management of Complex Systems Department and the Management of Innovation, Sustainability and Technology Program at UC Merced; Marilyn Waite, managing director of the Climate Finance Fund and Stanley Ng, global partnerships director of New Energy Nexus.
Manufacturers can help avoid the harmful legacies of the past that have impacted climate justice communities worldwide. That message will be part of the discussion at a panel discussion on “The Science of Solutions: Addressing Climate Change with Green Chemistry” organized by the Yale Center for Green Chemistry and Engineering (CGCGE). From changes to how chemicals are regulated to reducing forever chemicals in industries such as fashion, green chemistry is inventing, implementing, and innovating solutions to prevent pollution and climate impacts.
“Policymakers, investors, and climate activists need to know what scientists are already aware of — green chemistry has provided climate change solutions that are ready today to go to scale, and these solutions represent a small fraction of the future power and potential of green chemistry to be a powerful tool in addressing climate change,” said Paul Anastas, Teresa and H. John Heinz III Professor in the Practice of Chemistry for the Environment and director of CGCGE, who will be a panelist at the discussion moderated by Vice Provost for Yale Planetary Solutions Julie Zimmerman.
To reduce their carbon footprints, companies have been increasingly turning to the carbon offset market. Peter Boyd, YSE lecturer and Resident Fellow at CBEY, is co-leading a discussion, “Saving the World’s Forests,” that looks at the future of utilizing carbon credits to save tropical forests. Tropical rainforests, particularly in the Amazon, are often called the "lungs of the planet" due to their ability to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, However, unsustainable agriculture, logging, mining, urban expansion, and other human-driven activities are rapidly destroying tropical forests around the world. Specifically, the conversation aims to increase understanding of, and amongst, the three predominant approaches in the using-carbon-credit-to-save-forests movement: the project-based approach, which describes those that develop, sell, and advocate for specific, defined forest projects; the jurisdictional approach, of which the Architecture for REDD+ Transactions are leading proponents, advocating for standardization of methodologies across geographies and minimum area sizes; and the sovereign carbon or national-scale-only approach, advocated by the Coalition for Rainforests Nations.
“These approaches have distinct advantages and drawbacks, deriving from different worldviews. Public disagreement of these differences has dampened demand for credits and prevented forest stewards from receiving funds at scale” Boyd said. “The goal of our discussion is to improve understanding and communication across stakeholder views, and subsequently, to encourage buyers of forest carbon credits to purchase without fear of backlash for buying the ‘wrong’ credit. Ultimately, the simple goal is to help make the world’s rainforests more valuable alive than dead.”
The dramatic increase in extreme weather events around the globe — from intense hurricanes to prolonged droughts to intense flooding — is among the most visible, costly, and life-alternating effects of the climate crisis. For the past several years, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has been examining how extreme weather affects people’s views on climate change, and, in 2023, launched a program with Climate Central to inform and inspire climate action by communicating the connections between climate change and extreme weather. Anthony Leiserowitz, director of YPCCC, will discuss the research findings in a session with Climate Central, Potential Energy Coalition, the Bezos Earth Fund, Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, and the Global Strategic Communications Council.
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How to motivate people to take action on climate is also at the heart of author and environmentalist Bill McKibben’s work. Americans over 60 years old represent the fastest growing segment of the population, with about 10,000 people a day passing the 60-year mark. In 2021, McKibben launched Third Act to help older Americans use their “unprecedented skills and resources” to advance climate action.” Yale Environment 360 Editor Roger Cohn will interview McKibben one-on-one about the current state of the climate movement, intergenerational action on climate, and more.
With Election Day fast approaching, a panel discussion with legislators and moderated by Esty on bridging partisan divides and fostering consensus across party lines will round out the forum on Friday, September 27.
“The need for cross-sector collaboration, high-level synergies, and bold action to address the climate crisis has never been greater,” said Dean Indy Burke. “I am excited and hopeful about the opportunity Climate Week NYC, in general, and the Yale Planetary Solutions program series in particular, presents to advance the high-impact, scalable solutions we are working on at YSE.”
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For more information about Yale Planetary Solutions Climate Week NYC summit: climateweek.yale.edu.
