Climate Week Spurs Action from Companies, Governments and Investors

This week, "the world's largest gathering ever on climate change” united politicians, activists, investors, business executives and nonprofit leaders in a rally to address our warming planet. The original goal of the U.N. Climate Summit was to create momentum leading up to the 2015 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris. What transpired was a week-long climate rally, going far beyond most expectations. Many organizations took this moment in time as an opportunity to make major, game-changing commitments:

•    The City of New York, host to this week's events, kicked things off with a commitment to reduce the city's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 80 percent by 2050 from 2005 levels. Mayor Bill de Blasio stated the city had "a moral imperative to act." The plan largely focuses on updating buildings – the city's biggest source of emissions.

•    For the first time, world leaders endorse a global timeline to cut natural forest loss in half by 2020, and strive to end deforestation by 2030. The "New York Declaration on Forests” is endorsed by dozens of governments, influential civil society groups and some of the world's largest companies. The plan to drastically diminish deforestation would reduce between 4.5 billion and 8.8 billion tons of GHG emissions annually – "equivalent to removing every car in the world from the road.”

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