An estimated 100,000 politicians, business leaders and campaigners have descended on London for the city’s Climate Action Week (LCAW) this week. It is an event that has risen to become a key fixture in the climate calendar, being around halfway between annual UN climate conferences, and growing in importance as the equivalent event in New York has declined amid the US’s climate retreat.
The scorching temperatures being recorded across the city - which has seen heat advisories repeatedly emailed out by organisers, and several LCAW events cancelled - are naturally providing significant inspiration for the numerous high profile speeches taking place this week.
“Believe me, when I was a child, it wasn't 35 degrees in London in June,” Energy Secretary Ed Miliband said on Tuesday at a sweltering event in Mansion House, an 18th-century Palladian landmark in the City of London that was certainly never designed for such heat. “What we are seeing, not just in Britain but around the world, impels us to act,” he added.
The more than 1,000 events taking place across the capital this week were organised against a backdrop of UK political leaders pledging to U-turn on long-established climate plans, environmental regulations being torn to shreds in the US, and a less than satisfactory conclusion to UN climate talks in Belém last November.
But there is a keen sense on the ground that climate movement has picked up a new headwind not only from the record June temperatures, but also from the War in Iran and closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which have reminded countries for the second time in five years of the risks of being too dependent on volatile fossil fuel markets.
“When Russia invaded Ukraine, some told us to ignore one fossil fuel shock and return to business as usual,” said Mr Miliband, who was speaking at a high-profile summit aiming to accelerate global electrification efforts. “And now, facing this second shot, just four years on, we hear the same argument. [But] those who are saying this are wrong.”
He continued: “Half of the recessions that happened since the 1970s in the UK have been caused by fossil fuel shocks. But what is different with this fossil fuel shock is that clean electrification gives us a clear alternative: an alternative that cannot be disrupted by foreign wars, and which isn't subject to global shocks, because it's locked at stable prices at home.”
Echoing comments made to The Independent earlier this year by climate minister Katie White, Mr Miliband said that the energy transition is not simply about economic security, but also about opportunity. He pointed to new figures published this week showing that private sector companies have pledged more than £100bn in investment into the green economy during just two years of the current Labour Government.
“This didn't happen by accident. It happened because we had a clear mission,” Mr Miliband said of the figures. “And what we are seeing in Britain is part of a global clean energy boom that the [International Energy Agency] projects will drive a record 2.2 trillion dollars of investment this year.”
Speaking straight after Mr Miliband, outgoing UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said that two crises facing the world today - around both rapidly warming temperatures and around an energy shock that is “straining economies and fueling inflation” - share a common solution.
“We must turn the page [on fossil fuels] and we have a historic opportunity to do so, with clean electrification powered by renewables,” he said, and pointed to major achievements to that end, including that one in three cars sold worldwide are now electric, and green investment is now double that of fossil fuels.
Mt Guterres added, however, that significant work must still be done to drive clean energy investment into Africa. Countries here, he said, are home to 60 per cent of the world's best solar resources, but continue to only receive two per cent of global clean energy investments, despite having around some 600 million people without electricity.
Speaking to The Independent on the summit’s sidelines, Clarence Edwards - US executive director of climate thinktank and event organiser E3G - said that the world has entered a new era of energy policy “pragmatism”, driven by both the War in Iran as well as increasing clarity around the Trump administration’s position on climate.
“I think the impact of the US Administration's absence from climate discussions, as well as Russia's invasion of Ukraine followed by the Iran conflict, has really started to concentrate people’s minds,” he said. “It has all just really brought home to people that solar, wind, and batteries are winning on the price front, the energy security front, and the climate front.”
Last week, The Independent published an analysis of US public investments abroad, which found that the Trump administration was continuing to channel billions of dollars into climate-friendly projects - whether in coastal resilience, renewable power infrastructure, or minerals required for clean energy - in spite of Trump’s climate scepticism.
For Mr Edwards, these findings reflect a reality where such investments make sense regardless of climate ambition.
“These are investments into technologies that are modern and forward-leaning regardless of whether you think climate change is real or not,” he said. “One thing to understand about America is that it runs on money, and if there is money to be made in these technologies, then you can bet that the US is not going to sit back just because somebody doesn’t like clean energy.”
The sheer number of country representatives present at LCAW and advocating for clean energy also serves as a reminder of how isolated the US is in its current position on the climate crisis.
“We are importing close to 75 per cent of the gas we consume, so we need to develop independence from these imports by generating from sun and wind, of which we have plenty,” said Jose Luis Samaniego, minister for sustainable development in the Government of Mexico, at a press conference on Tuesday.
“The current global energy volatility serves as a reminder that energy security and climate action are deeply interconnected,” said Mohammad Jumhur Hidayat, Indonesia’s environment minister, at the same press conference. “Our priority is to align and visit our energy development with robust environmental guidelines, ensuring that our progress is both sustainable and responsible.”
Also in attendance at events this week is Surangel S. Whipps, the President of Palau, a Pacific Island nation that is one of the most climate vulnerable on earth. Mr Whipps is also serving this as the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) negotiating group at UN climate climate groups, meaning that he will represent 39 low-lying coastal and small island developing nations at upcoming UN climate talks, Cop31, which are taking place in Anatalya, Turkey, in November.
“Lately, the world has been ripped apart by what many have claimed is an energy crisis. But let us be very accurate: this is not an energy crisis, but a fossil fuel crisis,” he said in a keynote address on Tuesday. He added that Palau has historically spent more than 10 per cent of its GDP on imported diesel, but is now undergoing a rapid transition to cheap solar power coupled with batteries.
“The worst thing any nation can do right now is to dig deeper into fossil fuels,” he added. “It must leave them in the ground and embrace the superior, cheaper, and entirely dependable technology that sun, wind, and storage provide.”
This article has been produced as part of The Independent’s Rethinking Global Aid project
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