Academy Special Briefing: From the UN Climate Action Summit to COP25

In follow-up to the UN Climate Action Summit and a month before COP 25 in Spain, this session looks at how corporate leaders can keep the momentum going through ambitious climate action. The session explains the next steps after the Climate Action Summit, with a view to how business can engage in the lead-up to COP 25 and beyond. It will also look into 2020, when — for the first time — countries will need to raise their ambition and submit their revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).

Speakers:

  • Ambassador Luis Alfonso De Alba, UN Secretary General's Special Envoy for the Climate Action Summit
  • Lise Kingo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact
  • Carlos Sallé, Senior Vice-President of Energy Policies and Climate Change, Iberdrola

Moderator: Dan Thomas, Chief of Communications, UN Global Compact


2019 is a crucial year for climate action, requiring ramped-up ambition from all actors in society to enable the world to bend the emissions curve by the end of 2020 and to get on track to limit global warming to 1.5ºC. On 23 September 2019, UN Secretary-General António Guterres hosted the UN Climate Action Summit, calling on Heads of State and other leaders, including from the private sector, to come to New York with concrete, scalable plans towards a full transformation of the real economy to achieve net-zero global emissions by 2050.

Building on the Academy session on Private Sector Engagement for the Climate Action Summit on 17 May (recording below), this special session provides business and investors with a report-back on outcomes from the Abu Dhabi preparation meeting on how to contribute meaningfully to the UN Climate Action Summit.

Speakers include:

  • UN Secretary General's Special Envoy, Ambassador Luis Alfonso De Alba
  • Lise Kingo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact
  • Anirban Ghosh, Chief Sustainability Officer, Mahindra Group
  • Laetitia Tankwe, PRI Board Member and Advisor to the President of the Board of Trustees, Ircantec

Access the Private Sector Engagement Guide for the Climate Action Summit 2019

On 17 May, the UN Global Compact Academy hosted a special briefing on how business leaders can get involved in the lead-up to the UN Climate Summit 2019 — and beyond — in order to support ambitious political outcomes towards a just, resilient and zero-carbon future.

Speakers include:

  • UN Secretary General's Special Envoy, Ambassador Luis Alfonso De Alba
  • Lise Kingo, CEO and Executive Director of the UN Global Compact
  • Paul Polman, SDG Advocate, Chair of the B Team, Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), Vice Chair of the UN Global Compact Board and member of the International Business Council of World Economic Forum (WEF)
  • Jen Austin, Policy Director, WMB

The UN Climate Action Summit team invites input and leadership from businesses in the planning of the event throughout the year, and is working with the UN Global Compact, the We Mean Business coalition, the International Chamber of Commerce and the World Economic Forum to coordinate these efforts.

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