Climate Week NYC 2026 takes place from September 20-27. Hosted by Climate Group, an international non-profit committed to advancing climate action, Climate Week NYC convenes global leaders, business executives, policymakers, and civil society experts to tackle the climate crisis. This year, the focus is on driving real-world energy transitions, measurable impacts, and collaborative action.
Experts from SEI will participate as speakers, panelists, and delegates at over 10 partner events across Climate Week NYC. They will discuss connected topics such as SEI’s data center transparency research, sustainability transitions, AI governance, and water management.
SEI-hosted events include two adaptation finance sessions, specifically exploring the role of development banks in scaling climate adaptation finance in Latin America, and country platforms and blended finance as drivers of NDC implementation. A workshop session on downscaling Planetary Boundaries will be held at Solutions House.
Organizers: SEI in partnership with Climate Impact Research (PIK), London School of Economics (LSE) and Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC)
Where: Solutions House, New York.
When: 11:00-12:30 EDT
This 90-minute water focused session invites actors and decision-makers from public, private and civil society to review and test early concepts on downscaling planetary boundaries into decision-ready and actionable guidance. The event is designed for participants to challenge the work and express what would make it usable in the real world.
The event is co-hosted with: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Stockholm Resilience Centre (SRC) and the London School of Economics (LSE).
Organizer: Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Where: Tishman Auditorium, The New School, New York, NY
When: 13:00-17:00 EDT
The event celebrates the annual release of the 2026 Planetary Health Check, a comprehensive science-based initiative on the state of our planet. This event has an urgent purpose: to translate complex Earth-system science into tangible, meaningful insights that inspire audiences to act. The aim is to show that systemic change across government, policy, business, and finance is possible and underway.
Organizers: United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI)
Where: UN Global Compact Office, 12th floor
When: 13:30 – 15:30 EDT
Organizer: Solutions House NYC
Where: The Assembly – Midtown Manhattan Corporate Event Venue, 2 Park Ave, New York, NY 10016, USA
When: 14:30- 15:30 EDT
This event will launch the Talking Climate Collaborative and the largest and most comprehensive landscape assessment of climate communicators across the U.S. and Canada.
Climate communicators are everywhere, scientists and sustainability officers, health professionals and faith voices, teachers, athletes, journalists, and creators, but most of them are doing it alone. We’re changing that.
The Talking Climate Collaborative is a new home base for climate communicators. Our goal is to make climate conversations more common, more confident, and more effective.
Organizer: The Swedish Consulate in New York
Where: The Swedish residence; 600 Park Avenue at 64th Street
When: 18:30 – 20:30 EDT
Organizers: Kite Insights and EY
Where: One Manhattan West, 395 9th Ave, New York, NY 10001
When: 19:00-20:00 EDT
This debate is part of the Critical Conversations Series, hosted by EY and curated by DEBATABLE. Since launching at Climate Week NYC 2025, the series has continued through COP30 and London Climate Action Week 2026, challenging assumptions, surfacing tensions, and exploring real solutions to help business and society shape the future with confidence.
At this year’s Climate Week NYC, we are looking to shape a debate around water and whether its relative scarcity (or overabundance) is a question of value, management or environmental reality.
Organizers: Consulate General of Sweden in New York, together with Future Earth, The Earth League and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP)
Where: Swedish Residence (600 Park Avenue at 64th Street)
When: 8:30-10:30 EDT
This event presents an exclusive preview of this year’s 10 New Insights in Climate Science report, published annually by Future Earth, the Earth League, and the World Climate Research Programme. This global report brings together leading scientists to distil the most critical new findings on climate change ahead of COP.
This session offers a first look at the ten most important new insights on climate risks and solutions, from record ocean heat uptake and accelerating sea-level rise to climate obstruction and the geopolitics of the energy transition. The event will cover how these findings update our understanding of where the Earth system is heading and what that means for physical risks, policy choices and business strategy. Professor Johan Rockström will present the report’s ten key findings, followed by a high-level panel discussion to explore what these insights mean for our collective trajectory and how science can be translated into concrete action in the run-up to COP31.
Organizer: Reimagining Conservation
Where: TBA
When: 14:00-18:00 EDT
Organizers: TED Countdown and the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance
Where:The Assembly- Midtown Manhattan Corporate Event Venue
When: 15:00-16:00 EDT
Everyone says climate needs a new narrative. But narrative has two meanings: Do we mean sharper messaging, or deeper storytelling?
This live debate pits communications against culture: mandate, trust and persuasion versus character, desire and imagination. Logic versus Magic. The aim is not to crown a winner, but to decide what each can do, where each fails, and how leaders can invest in both types of narrative without confusing them.
Organizer: Climate Analytics
Where: Victor Borge Hall, Scandinavia House
When: 15:30 – 17:00 EDT
The coming decade will be defined by critical decisions made amidst deep uncertainty and overlapping crises. Yet one essential benchmark remains unchanged: the 1.5°C global warming limit remains the scientific, moral and legal boundary for climate action. This event asks: how can we navigate unprecedented challenges to achieve the deep systemic changes needed to deliver 1.5°C?
Organizers: TED Countdown and the Sustainable Entertainment Alliance
Where: The Assembly- Midtown Manhattan Corporate Event Venue
When: 16:30-17:30 EDT
Climate language often loses people. Terms like net zero, Paris-aligned, 1.5°C, and nature-based solutions may be precise, but they mean little to most audiences.
In this interactive ‘game show’ session, participants will be challenged to speak on climate topics for 60 seconds without jargon. It’s all in good fun, but it makes a serious point: if people can’t understand us, how can we expect them to act?
Organizer: Business Sweden
Where: Business Sweden’s Office @ 295 Madison Avenue, F
When: 17:30-19:00 EDT
Discussion on the evolving US trade and geopolitical landscape.
Organizers: The Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program and the UK’s Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
Where: 800 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10017
When: 9:00-10:30 AM, EDT
Organizer: World Resources Institute
Where: Apella, New York City, Room 207
When: 09:30-11:00 EDT
Discussion in revitalizing climate cooperation. The event will explore the strategic use of diverse diplomatic arenas, placing the UNFCCC with a much wider ecosystems that includes new coalitions of the willing, expanding regional cooperation, and tighter links to core national priorities like trade, finance and security.
Organizer: Reimagining Conservation
Where: TBA
When: 10:00-12:00 EDT
Organizers: The Schmidt Family Foundation, Mati Carbon and Clarmondial
Where: TBA
When: 15:00-18:00 EDT
This intimate afternoon reception will bring together a highly curated group of maximum 20 leaders from across the leading philanthropies, multilateral funders, relevant government ministries, and the corporate sustainability community – to brainstorm how catalytic capital can drive resilient supply chains, smallholder adaptation financing, large-scale landscape restoration, and durable carbon removal; while also featuring some of the forward-looking case examples on these themes from the co-hosts.
Where: 345 Park Avenue South, New York Science Summit, 12th Floor
When: 16:00-18:00 EDT
Ed Carr, Centre Director and Senior Scientist at SEI US, will speak at the NY Science Summit Session and participate in the panel discussion along with other international experts.
Where: Pier 57, New York
When: 14:00-16:00 EDT
Ed Carr, Centre Director and Senior Scientist at SEI US, will join this funder roundtable and discuss the impacts of USAID’s withdrawal on conservation and the implications for a reimagined future.
Organizers: SEI in collaboration with Columbia University
Where: TBA
When: 17:00-18:30 EDT
Organizer: The Nordics in New York
Where: Scandinavia House
When: 08.30–11:00 EDT
Bringing together senior government officials, industry leaders, and key institutional stakeholders from the Nordics and the United States, the summit will explore how transatlantic collaboration can accelerate the decarbonization of the built environment, strengthen energy efficiency, and support the development of more sustainable, future-ready urban systems.
Organizer: SEI in partnership with NDC and the World Climate Foundation
Where: Convene, 810 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10019, United States
When: 09.30–10:30 EDT
Industry is at the heart of the global transition to a net-zero economy, but transforming emissions-intensive sectors remains a complex challenge. The Leadership Group for Industry Transition’s engagement at Climate Week NYC 2026 will focus on how governments, industry and finance can come together to accelerate practical action. The secretariat team will participate in several events and host a high-level dialogue on global cement decarbonization. LeadIT will also contribute to the High-Level Solutions Dialogue on Accelerating Green Industrialization convened by the UN Assistant Secretary General and the UN Climate Action team (UNCAT)
SEI hosts the LeadIT Secretariat.
Organizer: LeadIT, Global Cement and Concrete Association
Where: One Vanderbilt
When: Monday 21 September, 14.00–15.30 EDT
Cement and concrete are essential to infrastructure and economic development, yet its production is emissions-intensive, and its decarbonization depends on changes across energy systems, technologies, markets, and value chains. To achieve this will need credible, investable, and country-specific action. Cement is produced locally, under very different conditions, and a pathway that is technically or economically viable in one market may not be directly transferable to another. This roundtable dialogue will explore how we can move from a global cement decarbonization ambition to action that works in different national contexts?
Organizer: Business Sweden
Where: Residence of the Consul General, Sweden
When: Wednesday 23 September, 09.00–10.30 EDT
COP31 needs to advance the shift from ambition-setting to measurable implementation. Connecting NDCs with economic policy, infrastructure planning, financial instruments and real-economy project pipelines will be fundamental to this transition. By convening leaders from industry, finance, and government, the discussion will explore how local and regional implementation experiences can help inform the policy, finance and infrastructure priorities that needs to shape the COP31 agenda. Through the lenses of policy, finance and infrastructure, participants will identify practical pathways for accelerating deployment, mobilising investment and scaling solutions across interconnected energy, industrial and infrastructure systems.
Organizer: United Nations Climate Action Team
Where: Dag Hammarskjöld Library Reading Room, UN HQ
When: Thursday 24 September, 13.30–15.30 EDT
The UN Secretary-General’s Climate Action Team (UNCAT), in conjunction with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the COP troika (Brazil, Türkiye and Ethiopia), is organizing a High-Level Solutions Dialogue on Accelerating Green Industrialization, building on last year’s Dialogue and subsequent developments in this area.
The 2026 dialogue will focus on practical solutions to accelerate green industrialization, particularly in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs). The discussion will also explore how innovative financial and de-risking mechanisms through a variety of enabling policies and demand-side measures – including green public procurement, product standards and other approaches that stimulate demand for low-carbon industrial products – can unlock investment, expand participation of low-carbon and sustainable value chains and support a just and inclusive industrial transition. The session will further address the role of international partnerships in supporting the efforts to advance green industrialization.
Organizer: Bharatia and the Climate & Energy Transition FInance Initiative
Where: Business Iceland
When: Thursday 24 September, 15.00–17.00 EDT
The climate transition does not suffer from a shortage of technologies. Thousands of climate solutions have already been developed and proven around the world. The greater challenge is moving them from successful early deployment to affordable, repeatable and financeable scale. This is particularly important for emerging markets and developing economies. Technologies developed for smaller, high-income markets frequently remain too expensive, too bespoke or insufficiently adapted for widespread emerging-market deployment.
India has the potential to become a global platform for taking proven technologies through First-of-a-Kind (FOAK) deployment and into Nth-of-a-Kind (NOAK) replication. Its combination of industrial demand, infrastructure requirements, manufacturing capability, engineering capacity, diverse operating conditions and large domestic market provides a powerful environment for commercialisation. But the opportunity goes beyond India. Technologies proven, adapted and scaled in India can become significantly more affordable and deployable across Africa, Asia, Latin America and other emerging markets.
Feature / SEI answers six key questions about air pollution and business ahead of Climate Week NYC, highlighting reporting, data and why clean air makes economic sense.
Press release / A new study with over 50 scientists, led by Lancaster University, reveals that Amazonia is experiencing rapid growth in extreme temperatures and water stress.
Event on 03 October – 11 October in Bangkok / Bangkok Climate Action Week (BKKCAW) is a regional climate gathering activating the power of people to drive meaningful change from 3 to 11 October 2026.
