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The Paradox of Climate Week NYC

By Ellie Johnston
October 14, 2025

The first big international climate event I ever attended was the ill-fated COP15 Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. Afterwards, when people asked how it went, I said it was a disaster in terms of progress, but I met the most amazing people—people whose passion and resolve sparked commitments that shaped whole careers, including my own. Attending this year’s Climate Week NYC, I felt a version of that familiar paradox—a blend of frustration and inspiration.

NYC Climate Week drew over 100,000 participants to more than 1,000 events this year. The scale alone is staggering. Everywhere you turn, there are new technologies, partnerships, and ideas on display. From grabbing coffee with people focused on better refrigerants to learning about matchmaking efforts between European investors and African-led climate finance projects, I was inspired by the range of good work happening.

At the same time, the backdrop is challenging—and progress can feel fragile. Climate Week coincided with the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Helene devastating my own community. In some rooms, I heard people argue that the only way to make the case for climate action was if it made sense for profits. That’s hard to hear when I think about the billion dollars of storm damages my city suffered and how we spent 53 days without clean drinking water. The business case is important, but it isn’t the only reason this work matters.

That duality—the abundance of solutions alongside the inertia of our social systems—captures the challenge on climate change.

Amid all this, I focused my time in NYC on how our work at Climate Interactive can help accelerate effective climate action. Across panels and conversations, I saw a growing appetite for tools that cut through the noise: how to connect corporate climate commitments to real-world outcomes, how to ensure disclosures translate into decisions, and how to link finance with impact.

At the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) Climate Solutions Roundtable, I joined a panel on systems and pathways with colleagues from the Bezos Earth Fund and Project Drawdown to discuss how transparent, publicly available tools—including our En-ROADS simulator—can help investors and decision-makers explore possible actions and see the ripple effects of their choices. The room was packed with people looking for resources to navigate the dynamic investing landscape and make a positive impact right now.

At the MIT Climate Showcase, we shared how En‑ROADS continues to support leaders around the world in understanding the dynamics of decarbonization. Our collaboration with MIT as part of the MIT Climate Pathways Project has reached over 22,000 leaders in business, government, and finance to date.

Seeing so many climate approaches underscored how vital systems thinking has become. Real progress depends on connecting the dots—between technology and policy, finance and equity, near-term decisions and long-term outcomes. That’s why the work of clear-eyed engagement—of helping leaders see how policies, investments, and technologies interact—matters so much right now. Tools like En-ROADS help illuminate those connections and keep our focus on what truly drives change. The net zero transition isn’t inevitable, but it’s within reach, if we keep doing the work, together.