Fossil Fuel Presence at Climate Week NYC Spotlights Dissonance in Clean Energy Transition

As Hurricane Helene strengthened in the Gulf of Mexico over the past few days—officially making landfall last night—thousands of government leaders, business representatives, nonprofit heads and guests met across New York City for Climate Week NYC, discussing ways to curb the emissions that fuel climate disasters.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden gave a speech outlining his administration’s climate wins, with a focus on clean energy investments like those fueled by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. However, U.S. oil and gas production is at record highs—something Vice President Kamala Harris touted in the recent presidential debate.

This complex—and often clashing—interplay between renewables and fossil fuels has been one of the key themes at Climate Week. Despite being the main contributor to climate change, the fossil fuel industry has had a large presence at events throughout the week, garnering pushback from climate activists. At the same time, government leaders from around the world have stressed the steep barriers they face to wean off oil and gas. 

Conflicting Interests: Backlash against the fossil fuel presence at Climate Week started before events officially began. Last Friday, hundreds of young people and their allies participated in a school walkout, led by the local chapter of the international youth-led movement Fridays for Future. My colleague Keerti Gopal covered the strike in person on the streets of New York City, where organizers spoke out against greenwashing and ardently pushed for a rapid transition away from oil and gas. 

Protests continued as the week went on. At a New York Times panel on Wednesday—titled “Can an Oil Company Lower Its Emissions?”—a dozen activists from the group Climate Defiance stormed the stage to protest the marquee speaker: Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum. 

“Climate criminals should not be allowed in polite society,” Climate Defiance’s Michael Greenberg told Inside Climate News after the event. “It is outrageous that the New York Times is hosting a fossil fuel CEO at a supposed climate event.” 

Hollub, in turn, spoke out against the protesters once the panel resumed (virtually this time). 

“Here at Occidental we are working for solutions to the climate change situation that our world faces,” she said. “It’s the greatest crisis that our world has ever faced and we have to come together to work on solutions for that and so, to me, to have those that are seeking headlines rather than solutions interrupt discussions that need to be had is a sad day for them, and I feel bad that they have nothing better to do with their time.”

A separate Times panel earlier in the week featured Kevin D. Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025. Climate reporter David Gelles peppered him with questions about that policy roadmap for a second Trump administration. Among the 920-page document’s recommendations: dramatic cuts to climate research and rollbacks of environmental policies of such key laws as the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act. Trump has made a point to distance himself from the project—which has been unpopular with voters on both sides.

Roberts argued that the transition to renewable energy has been so accelerated that it is “actually harming people far more than any of the harms that you would cite from so-called climate change.” Though experts agree that it is difficult to assess the true extent of climate-associated deaths, one estimate puts the tally at more than 4 million people since 2000.

Roadblocks to Transition: Throughout the week, major U.S. political figures have criticized the fossil fuel industry and countries’ failure to meet their climate goals. 

“All around the world, people are falling short or not even trying,” John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state and climate envoy, said at an event hosted by news outlet Axios. He pointed the blame at wealthy countries, including China and the U.S. When asked to give a letter grade for how the oil and gas industry is doing on the energy transition, Kerry said: “Is there anything underneath Z?” 

While dramatic emissions cuts will be necessary to slow climate change, lower-income countries that depend on oil and gas for a significant portion of their economies face daunting hurdles to their transitions to cleaner energy.

Inside Scoop: I reached out to my colleague Nicholas Kusnetz, who is at Climate Week, to tell me more about this. Here’s what he learned.

Several panels focused on the huge barriers to phasing out fossil fuel production. The most formidable, Colombia’s environment minister said, are the agencies, lenders and markets that make up the global financial system.

“As soon as they see that we’re going to replace that export,” said Susana Muhamad, speaking of the oil and coal Colombia now sends abroad, “the credit agencies raise the alarm, and the markets raise the alarm that probably we will not be able to pay our debt. And as a highly indebted country as well, this makes our access to capital more expensive, which means that we actually get more difficulties to be able to make the transition.”

Muhamad was speaking at an event held by the Fossil Fuel Nonproliferation Treaty Initiative, a collection of national and subnational governments looking to negotiate an international agreement that would help countries phase out production. Last year, Colombia became the first major fuel-exporting nation to join the initiative. Without an agreement that can address the financial threat posed by declining revenues, and the resulting impacts on debt markets, Colombia and other export-dependent countries won’t be able to meet their climate pledges, Muhamad said.

“We need to change the rules of the game of the financial system,” she said.

Two days later, a coalition of groups launched a new initiative, the Commission Project, to help identify the “bridges and barriers” to phasing out fossil fuels globally. The all-day event featured voices from around the world who identified political, financial and legal challenges. Among those mentioned was the investor-state dispute settlement system, which Inside Climate News investigations show fossil fuel companies are using to sue governments that are phasing out oil, gas and coal.

“We are talking about remaking the global economy,” said Stephen Kretzmann, with the Commission Project, in opening remarks. “That is not a small thing.”

More Top Climate News 

Hurricane Helene made a crash landing in Florida’s Big Bend area on Thursday night, triggering massive floods and storm surges across the coast of the Sunshine State. The Category 4 storm rapidly weakened overnight as it spread further inland, but it left a path of devastation in its wake, killing at least 35 people and leaving millions without power across the South, The Associated Press reports. Ahead of the storm, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned that people need to prepare for “catastrophic, life-threatening inland flooding” across the southern Appalachians, which are at risk of landslides. 

Hundreds of thousands of people across Germany have installed solar devices on their balconies known as balkonkraftwerk, Akielly Hu reports for Grist. The panels are plugged into a wall outlet and can supply apartments or homes with a chunk of their daily electricity to power something like a small fridge. Experts note that the countrywide impact of this initiative is relatively small, but can give consumers a direct way to reduce individual emissions. 

Meanwhile, in New Jersey, an offshore wind project has been stalled as the company leading it struggles to find a manufacturer that can build blades for its turbines, Wayne Parry reports for The Associated Press. For their Leading Light Wind project, renewable company energyRE obtained approval in January to build up to 100 turbines, but their potential supplier said it would not be able to manufacture the kind of equipment the company was looking to use. This represents a major roadblock for many offshore wind projects in the U.S., where domestic production and material supplies for offshore turbines is currently scarce. 

In other news, real estate app Zillow announced that it will incorporate potential climate risks—from wildfires to floods—into its property listings. With data from climate risk modeling firm First Street, Zillow’s app will also show users what types of insurance are needed on a property, giving consumers a more comprehensive window into the potential climate-related costs they face while purchasing a new home. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on Thursday that school districts across the country can apply for up to $965 million in rebates to support the electrification of school buses. The influx of funding is part of the EPA’s Clean School Bus Program, which I wrote about in April, if you would like to learn more. So far, the program has helped secure around 8,200 electric school buses, according to the Moms Clean Air Force. The group advocates for the replacement of diesel-fueled buses to reduce childhood lung issues and help slow climate change.