"New York Climate Week 2026: a broader agenda focused on implementation"

For the past few years, I have used this annual gathering to take the pulse of the sustainability agenda. In 2024, my conclusion was that sustainability was here to stay. Last year, despite an even more challenging geopolitical environment, I argued that this remained true, but that sustainability itself was undergoing a profound transformation.

After an intense week of conversations in New York, I would add another chapter to that story: the sustainability agenda is becoming broader, more economic and, above all, increasingly focused on implementation.

This was particularly visible in the COP31 Presidency's message. After a first decade of the Paris Agreement largely devoted to setting direction, establishing commitments and raising ambition, the next decade must increasingly be about turning those commitments into tangible outcomes. COP31 in Antalya is already being framed as an “Implementation COP.”

I would highlight five trends from the week.

First, sustainability is increasingly embedded in a broader narrative. Climate remains fundamental, but conversations are increasingly framed around growth, competitiveness, resilience, energy security, industrial policy and supply-chain security. Geopolitical fragmentation has accelerated this evolution. For businesses, sustainability is becoming less of a standalone ESG agenda and more closely connected with fundamental questions of where to invest, how to remain competitive and how to manage long-term risks.

Second, implementation means making projects investable. One message came up repeatedly: lack of private capital is not the main constraint. For investment to happen, projects need predictable economics and bankable structures. Governments have a fundamental role in creating these conditions through regulation, permitting, public procurement, carbon pricing mechanisms and other demand policies. At the same time, public and multilateral finance can be much more catalytic by absorbing risks that commercial capital cannot efficiently bear. Guarantees, blended finance, aggregation and country investment platforms can all help mobilize private capital at greater scale.

This has important consequences for banks. Our role is not to determine society's climate ambition. Governments establish the direction and policy framework and companies make investment decisions. Banks can maximize their contribution by helping transform those decisions into bankable projects, bringing financing, advisory and risk-management capabilities to the table.

Third, we are entering a major new electrification and infrastructure cycle. Electricity demand is growing as AI and data centers expand, industry electrifies and economies digitize. At the same time, the energy system needs to become cleaner, more resilient, more affordable and more secure. This creates enormous investment requirements not only to electrify transport, industry and buildings, to massively increase power generation, but also to scale up grids, storage and other enabling infrastructure which are critical to avoid becoming the bottleneck. The COP31 Presidency's goal of reaching 35 percent electrified final energy demand by 2035 has therefore become an important part of the conversation. According to the IEA annual investment in electrification would need to rise from around $1.8 trillion in 2025 to $3.5 trillion by 2035.

Fourth, adaptation and resilience are moving from the risk agenda towards the investment agenda. We discussed resilient cities, water, infrastructure and the economics of adaptation much more than in previous years. The interesting question is increasingly not only how much climate change will cost, but how resilience creates economic value, and how part of that value can be captured by investors. That shift could open significant new opportunities for financial innovation.

And fifth, collaboration is becoming more difficult and more necessary at exactly the same time. The UN General Assembly took place amid geopolitical fragmentation, trade tensions and concerns over energy security. Yet climate change, AI, global supply chains and energy systems do not respect national borders. We may therefore need increasingly pragmatic coalitions of governments, businesses, financial institutions and multilateral organizations that can make progress even when comprehensive global alignment proves difficult.

All of this brings me back to implementation.

We know broadly where we need to go. The challenge now is how to get there. We need leadership that connects ambition with execution. Leadership capable of combining long-term vision with economic pragmatism; of bringing governments and private capital together; of accepting that there will be different transition pathways across countries and sectors; and, above all, of building the conditions that allow companies, financial institutions and citizens to act.

The sustainability agenda is not becoming smaller. It is becoming broader, more integrated into the economy and more focused on delivery.