A sense of cautious optimism for the future of sustainability emerged after Climate Week New York, with many business leaders looking pragmatically beyond abstract commitments to opportunities to improve operational efficiency and resilience.
In this episode of Sustainability Leaders, Melissa Fifield, Head of the BMO Climate Institute, discussed these trends and more with John Uhren, Managing Director, Sustainable Finance with BMO Capital Markets. They discussed how sustainable businesses are evolving, market-based climate solutions, the opportunity of Artificial Intelligence and expectations ahead of COP30.
Listen to the 21-minute episode:
Below are highlights from the conversation:
Melissa Fifield: One of the things that struck me about Climate Week this year was really the optimism of the people that I had the opportunity to engage with…Did you find the same thing, and what's driving that optimism?
John Uhren: I might characterize it more as cautious optimism…there were over 1,000 events, there were over 100,000 attendees to Climate Week this year, I understand they're both records. Things are ticking along in a number of jurisdictions, like Europe, for example, they're scaling renewables significantly. In China, they're adding record solar and storage. In Canada, they have announced transition frameworks and transition bond programs to the sum of $10 billion a year, starting in 2027. So there's a lot of cautious optimism around what's happening in many jurisdictions.
Melissa: How are you seeing businesses considering "sustainability" in their operations? Are they seeing that as a burden, some type of compliance exercise, maybe a requirement, or are they seeing it as an opportunity?
John: So as I'm speaking to business leaders, they're not thinking of it from a mandatory compliance perspective, which then looks at, well, is it a burden or is it an opportunity?
And the truth is somewhere in the middle, but I would say it leans a little bit more to opportunity, in the sense that a phrase I heard a lot throughout New York Climate Week was around climate pragmatism, being eyes wide open around what needs to happen for sustainability to be properly characterized and prioritized by different businesses.
Melissa: I think there's a lot of folks that are super excited about the promise that AI has in terms of enhancing climate solutions or advancing solutions, and concern about the resources, power, water, et cetera, that is required not only to build the physical infrastructure, but also to maintain the power necessary to fuel its growth. Did you come away [from Climate Week] more excited about the promise or perhaps more concerned about some of the impacts that we'll see related to AI?
John: There's such opportunity with AI, and across sustainability…I will say that AI and data centers empowering AI, this theme came up in virtually every conversation that I had throughout New York Climate Week, with people really focused on the opportunity for it to materially change the way that we approach climate change, and have some of the technological advancements that we'd been hoping and praying for.
I think the data center question and the powering of data centers, that is obviously very front of mind in the sustainability space, and we look to different technologies, different developments and inputs, like nuclear, as an example, as being part of the solution.
Melissa: COP30 is right around the corner. What outcomes are you expecting this year, and in your view, what would make a successful COP30?
John: Well, I'm hopeful for action just generally, and maybe this is my takeaway for every COP or every global gathering, is you want to see something that goes beyond just messaging around the things that need to happen, and certainly that's part of it, around setting nationally determined contribution levels by country.
And then, showing tangible outputs at COP30 and beyond is something that I'm really hoping we see and I think will really resonate with people, the lay person who may be on the fence, may be reading, again, headlines and not sure what to believe about things like climate science. Climate change is here, it's real and we're seeing it in all our communities, and I think the more we can start to come up with solutions around how to prevent, or at least mitigate, some of those worst impacts, I think the better off we'll be.
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