Over here at Kite, we’ve been reflecting on the recent Climate Week NYC. You’re sure to receive many other emails this week with roundups of news items and highlights from New York.
But how many of them are the people highlights?
Climate Week is a whirlwind of subway trips, jetlag, traipsing around the city from one event to the next, traipsing around the city supporting your organisation’s leaders from one event to the next, late nights, pizza slices, bleary-eyed breakfast meetings, and many, many cups of coffee.
But it also offers moments for genuine connection – such as the dynamism and inclusion of a ‘fishbowl’-style workshop that makes room for as many people as possible to engage in the dialogue. Or facing off at a debate, then shaking hands and having a drink afterwards.
In other words, major events are not just opportunities for thought leadership and promotion – they're a chance to get to know your fellow sustainability professionals on a very human level.
We’re gutted to be missing the giant, slightly menacing and very coo-l pigeon sculpture that just went up this month along New York’s High Line elevated park. Standing nearly five metres tall, the sculpture is entitled Dinosaur - an homage to its prehistoric ancestors. As the artist’s statement puts it, “Dinosaur reverses the typical power dynamic between bird and human.”
Iván Argote, Dinosaur, 2024 (rendering). A High Line Plinth commission. On view October 2024-spring 2026. Image courtesy of the artist and the High Line.
Can we turn a giant pigeon into a metaphor for climate change? Of course we can. When we mess with planetary boundaries today, at a rate that far outstrips any prehistoric rate of carbon dioxide emissions, we face some very large risks – like irreversible tipping points. It’s a reversal of the power dynamic we’ve constructed between nature and humans...when you gaze into the pigeon, the pigeon also gazes back at you?
In her speech to open Climate Week NYC, Climate Group CEO Helen Clarkson emphasised that now is the time to act: to put people first, to get climate finance to the right places, to listen to citizens, to engage in the ‘un-sexy’ work of dismantling regulatory and other barriers, and to have difficult discussions about fossil fuels. So, what tools exist to drive real action? This week we heard about overhauling global financial systems, as the Bridgetown Initiative 3.0 aims to do, and the regulatory intricacies of overcoming obstacles to new renewable-energy projects. We talked about empowering people: whether helping employees learn about and act on sustainability in their roles, or guiding sustainability leaders through the maze and overwhelming environment of Climate Week NYC and other major events. And we heard about the heartbreaking need - straightforward but not always simple – to get agricultural, weather-predicting and other useful technologies into the hands of women farmers in the Global South, and to shore up their land rights and access to finance.
Whew.
Yes, it was an intense week. But the work of sustainability is never done. So we leave you with two final thoughts.
If you weren’t on the ground in New York, it can feel like being left out. But this is a GOOD THING. Sustainability is becoming ever more distributed and infused throughout companies – far beyond the capacity of one city or one event. If you are integrating sustainability into your role and making every job a climate job, THANK YOU.
With thanks and pigeons,
Sophie