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Jul 25, 2025, 10:41:11 AMJul 25

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UN Climate Change – Global Climate Action

25 July 2025

Climate High-Level Champions'

Newsletter

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New Work Programme Drives Stronger, More Coordinated Climate Action

The Climate High-Level Champions and the Marrakech Partnership have launched their 2025 work programme focused on aligning the climate action already underway across the systems we all rely on. This programme forms the operational backbone of the newly launched Brazilian COP 30 Action Agenda that brings existing efforts into sharper focus around 30 shared objectives (grouped into six core ‘axes’) aligned with the first Global Stocktake - the UN’s official ‘report card’ on climate progress.

Each objective is supported by Activation Groups, made up of initiatives already working in that space. These groups are responsible for identifying barriers; coordinating delivery efforts; sharing practical solutions; and reporting progress. To ensure local breakthroughs become global solutions, each Activation Group will contribute to a “Granary of Solutions” — a collection of proven approaches that others can adopt or adapt.

Organisations and initiatives currently contributing to the shared objectives are encouraged to register through the UNFCCC Global Climate Action Portal and explore opportunities to participate in relevant Activation Groups. Progress will be shared throughout the year and reviewed at COP 30 in Belém, supporting a more coherent, accountable and durable approach to climate action.

The work programme not only guides delivery in the leadup to COP 30, it also serves as a springboard for a broader consultative process that was launched on 17 July to help guide the next five years of the Global Climate Action Agenda. Parties to the UNFCCC and non-State actors are encouraged to submit their views by 18 August. More information including a set of guiding questions is available on the UNFCCC website and in the Champions’ letter from 17 July 2025.

Climate Week 2: Strengthening Regional Action and Global Impact

The second Climate Week of the year (CW2) will take place in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 1 to 6 September. It will focus on strengthening regional and global cooperation on climate action, with a spotlight on local priorities and practical solutions.

Implementation Forum – 3–4 September:

A key feature of CW2 is the Implementation Forum, held on 3–4 September. This two-day event will include a range of activities, including:

High-level sessions hosted by the COP 30 Presidency.
Thematic Implementation Labs focused on forests, agriculture, sustainable cities, energy transition and access, and carbon markets.
Roundtables for businesses and subnationals.
Sessions on climate finance and other topics.

All registered CW2 participants are welcome to attend the Implementation Forum, subject to venue capacity. Please note that participation is in-person only; virtual attendance will not be available.

To express your interest in participating in the Implementation Forum, click here. For more information and the full programme, visit the Implementation Forum event page.

The 2025 Climate Weeks, scheduled for 2025 convened by the UN Climate Change secretariat, are strategically aligned with the intergovernmental processes under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement. These gatherings serve as critical platforms for translating global climate commitments into concrete, on-the-ground action.

An overview of the sessions and a detailed preliminary programme are available on the UNFCCC website.

A Critical Season for Climate Solutions

Across the world, recent climate meetings are setting the stage for a critical year ahead. Amid record heat and rising urgency, policymakers, businesses, and civil society are converging to pivot from pledges to action.

With just four months until COP 30, the latest climate meetings are setting the tone for a decisive second half of the year. This edition covers key areas of renewed climate momentum, including finance, standards-setting, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and regenerative agriculture.

In the past few weeks, climate leaders gathered at the UN Bonn sessions and London Climate Action Week to urge faster action to close the widening gap between climate commitments and implementation.

Climate High-Level Champions Dan Ioschpe and Nigar Arpadarai at London Climate Action Week’s Derisking Summit.

The incoming COP Presidency also unveiled a unified Global Climate Action Agenda, reaffirming its commitment to implementing the outcome of the first Global Stocktake - the first comprehensive review of progress under the Paris Agreement. Echoing this call for delivery, the Climate High-Level Champions, Nigar Arpadarai and Dan Ioschpe, underscored that promises must now translate into practice.

“What we need now is pace with purpose, urgency with alignment and the capacity to reach the finish line together and in time,” said Nigar Arpadarai and Dan Ioschpe, COP 29 and COP 30 Climate High-Level Champions.

Adaptation and Resilience is at the center of the COP 30 Action Agenda

Governments and non-State actors are increasingly recognising that accelerating climate adaptation offers not only protection - but also significant benefits for people, nature and the economy - beyond the goal of cutting emissions. A new Climate Champions publication, ‘Recognising Enabling Conditions for Adaptation and Resilience,’ sets out a path to scaling adaptation, drawing on lessons from the Race to Resilience campaign and the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda.

The report identifies five enablers of resilience: Knowledge and Capacity Building; Finance; Markets; and Governance; as well as two crosscutting enablers: Partnerships and Collaboration; and Equity and Inclusive Participation. Drawing on the Sharm El-Sheikh Adaptation Agenda, which sets measurable sectoral targets to close the USD 366 billion adaptation finance gap by 2030. It highlights solutions, such as early warning systems, mangrove restoration, and community-led water security programmes that often lack consistent policy and funding. Private sector engagement on adaptation and resilience is gaining real momentum, with COP 30 set to highlight the urgent need to scale business-led action and finance. While more companies now recognize the material risks posed by climate change, many still struggle to move from awareness to concrete investment.

Encouragingly, momentum is building to integrate risk reduction into core business strategy—supported by tools like the WBCSD–Sharm Adaptation Agenda report, which provides a practical framework for corporate adaptation planning. This was reflected during a London Climate Action Week roundtable, hosted by Dan Ioschpe with over 20 business leaders, where participants identified clear opportunities to accelerate private sector adaptation, surfacing readiness to address barriers to investment, including data gaps, limited incentives, and inadequate finance tools.

The first ever London Climate Resilience Summit, also held during the week, gathered Heads of State, senior Ministers, finance and business leaders, and civil society to explore how to supercharge effective finance for climate resilience. Sheela Patel, Global Ambassador to the Champions and COP 30 President-Designate Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago emphasised the critical need to mobilise finance for climate resilience that reaches those on the frontlines, especially communities in informal settlements.

Small and Medium Enterprises: the missing driver

The Champions are spotlighting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which account for 90% of employment and 40% of GDP globally. SMEs have the potential to unlock a USD 789 billion green finance market, but almost half cite access to capital as their top barrier. Launched at London Climate Action Week, the new SME Finance Sprint has been designed to mobilise banks, lenders, and corporates to close the finance gap in emerging economies. It also calls on large companies to green their supply chains by investing in SME innovation.

Find out more about London Climate Action Week here.

Inside the Revised SBTi Corporate Net-Zero Standard with CEO David Kennedy

As companies face increasing pressure to deliver on climate commitments, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) is in the process of finalizing a revised Corporate Net-Zero Standard, shifting the focus from target setting to implementation.

The SBTi, the world’s most widely used framework for validating corporate climate targets, was established to help companies align their decarbonisation plans with the goals of the Paris Agreement. For thousands of companies worldwide, having an SBTi-validated target signals to investors, customers, and regulators that their plans to cut emissions are not just promises, but measurable commitments grounded in science.

The SBTi’s CEO, David Kennedy, provides an exclusive insight into the growth of SBTi-validated targets, as well as how Version 2 of the Standard - which is expected to be ready for use by early 2026 - will tackle challenges like how and when to use carbon credits, as well as consistent, transparent emissions accounting.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What trends are you seeing in terms of corporate net zero target-setting?

“We’re seeing sustained growth in the quantity of net zero targets. Over 11,000 companies now either have validated targets or commitments to set them with the SBTi. In 2024, the number of companies with validated net zero companies more than doubled, and in just the first five months of this year, we’re already 30% ahead of where we were at the same point in 2024.

We continue to see strong demand from the U.S., UK, and Europe, but also growing engagement in Asia. More companies are recognizing the need to prepare for a carbon-constrained future and the benefits of getting ahead of that challenge.

On the quality of commitments, more and more companies are coming to us with a solid understanding of their carbon footprint, which is the foundation for setting credible, science-based targets. Our Corporate Net-Zero Standard requires companies to align their decarbonisation pathways with limiting warming to 1.5°C. For example, that means committing to cut absolute Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by at least 42% by 2030, relative to a 2020 baseline.

The Corporate Net-Zero Standard is now entering a second phase. What prompted this revision?

The first version of the Corporate Net-Zero Standard was designed for the first phase of the net zero transition. It took a climate objective and translated it into a global pathway to curtail emissions, and secured commitments and then targets to deliver emissions cuts.

Now, the broader climate action ecosystem is in the implementation phase. That’s reflected in the second version of the Standard, which has already been shaped by extensive consultation and active engagement from a wide range of organizations and businesses, and is now entering pilot testing.

What are the most important changes companies need to know about?

Key changes currently proposed in the draft version of the Standard include splitting Scope 1 and Scope 2, recognising the distinct challenges they pose. We’re also proposing an action-based approach to Scope 2, where companies set targets to reduce location-based emissions, and either reduce market-based emissions or set a zero-carbon electricity target, which means committing zero-carbon electricity by 2040 at the latest by investing directly in renewable generation, entering power purchase agreements, or procuring certified green power.

There’s also a stronger link to transition planning, as companies increasingly publish and execute detailed plans for how they will deliver their targets. For Scope 3, the draft’s focus is on companies driving net zero alignment in their supply chains, especially with key suppliers.

We’ve also set out options for consideration around using high-integrity carbon credits, but with a clear message: these can never be a substitute for reducing your own emissions. Carbon dioxide removals (CDR) can be a useful complement to emissions reductions, but it’s vital that this does not dilute efforts to reduce emissions profiles.

How is SBTi addressing concerns about over-reliance on carbon removals?

I want to be clear: some decarbonisation frameworks allow companies to trade off emission reductions with buying more credits. That is not the SBTi’s approach. Reducing your own emissions remains non-negotiable. That’s true of version one of the Standard and will remain true in version two.

However, to meet global climate goals, we also need to scale up large-scale removals - 10 gigatons annually over time - in addition to all of the stretch ambition to slash carbon footprints. So there is a role for high-integrity removals within a science-based approach, as a complementary measure. In our consultation, we presented options for recognising these levels of removals, and we’re now reviewing feedback and undertaking pilot testing before deciding how best to move forward.

Do we need to separate targets for emissions reductions and for removals, to help clarify the role each plays in company net zero pathways?

Yes. In the consultation, we made it clear that companies must have targets to reduce their own emissions, with no trade-offs. We also acknowledged that high-integrity removals could have a complementary role, but exactly how we recognise that is still under consideration. We’ll share more in the next draft of the Standard.

How would you describe corporate attitudes to the climate challenge?

The corporate net zero transition isn’t about companies doing the right thing for the sake of it. Ultimately, it’s about the business case.

Despite the weakening of top-level climate leadership in certain key markets the international climate agreement has sustained momentum and still covers more than three quarters of global emissions. National and regional policies, incentives and regulations are also already in place - and only getting stronger.

All of this points in one direction: we are going to be living in a carbon-constrained world. And smart companies across every geography and sector - aviation, shipping, banking, retail, energy, infrastructure - need to be and are planning for it. They understand that they’re already facing transition risk. If they don’t act, they will simply not remain competitive. The SBTi is playing a central role in helping businesses translate transition risk into concrete action that will protect their competitiveness now and in the years ahead.”

SBTi is one of 26 Partners in the Race to Zero, which along with 33 Accelerators, collectively unite more than 16,200 members – the world’s largest alliance working to halve global emissions by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement, with transparent action plans and near-term targets.

This is an excerpt of the full article which is available here.

Innovators Gather in Riyadh to Transform Water-Scarce Farming

Goumbook, partners and advisers of the MENA Regional Regenerative Agriculture Summit. (Credit: Goumbook).

The MENA and Turkey (MENAT) region, with its vast arid and semi-arid lands, has a long history of adapting to water scarcity, drought, and soil degradation that threaten ecosystems and food security. This heritage positions MENAT to lead in advancing climate-resilient farming.

In May, the MENAT Regional Regenerative Agriculture Summit took place in Riyadh, organized by UAE-based social enterprise, Goumbook.

The Summit celebrated the top 20 solutions from the MENAT Regenerative Agriculture Venture Building Programme, launched in partnership with Saudi Awwal Bank, HSBC Bank Middle East, and supported by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food and the Climate Champions Team. The programme drew over 660 applications from innovators across 65 countries, and three winning solutions, from companies based in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UK, were selected for funding and incubation support.

Race to Resilience update:

Two New Partners and One City join the Race to Resilience

New partners are joining the Race to Resilience, building fresh momentum to the campaign for climate resilience. Among them is TECHO (pronounced teh-choh), a youth-led non-profit organization working across 18 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to create a just society through building resilient informal settlements. In the US, Ecosphere Restoration Institute, based in Florida, has restored over 400 acres of critical habitats, and enhanced more than 3,200 acres through public-private partnerships. In Taiwan province of China, the City of Taoyuan - with a population of more than 2.2 million people - has joined more than 90 cities in the Cities Race to Resilience. Taoyuan is committed to strengthening resilience and improving the well-being of citizens by integrating adaptation measures across buildings, digital infrastructure, nature-based solutions, food systems and citizen engagement.

ORRAA Unveils AI-Driven Blue Finance Platform

Credit: Salesforce and ORRAA

In a bold step toward scaling climate resilience and nature-based solutions for the ocean, Race to Resilience partner, the Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) unveiled the ‘Octopus Platform’ recently in Monaco, ahead of the UN Ocean Conference.

This first-of-its-kind digital tool uses advanced AI-powered matching - developed in partnership with Salesforce’s Agentforce - to connect regenerative and sustainable blue economy projects with global investors. As part of ORRAA’s broader Sea Change Impact and Financing Facility (SCIFF), the platform aims to mobilize over USD 1 billion in private investment by 2030, prioritizing projects in developing countries. Backed by AXA and a consortium of scientific and innovation partners, the Octopus Platform is set to transform fragmented blue finance into a coordinated and scalable system, unlocking critical funding for community resilience and ocean-positive action.

Cooling Indonesia’s Heat-Trapped Homes

Homeowner Uang at Ciasem, Jawa Barat. Credit - Build Change

Across Indonesia, poorly insulated and ventilated homes routinely trap dangerous heat, particularly in low-income neighborhoods where materials are often substandard. For many households, especially those led by women - staying cool is essential for protecting health, sustaining livelihoods and coping with an increasingly volatile climate.

In response, Race to Resilience partner, Build Change, a social innovator focused on resilient housing and a Race to Resilience partner, is collaborating with KOMIDA, one of Indonesia’s largest microfinance institutions, to help women living on less than USD 5 per day make targeted improvements that reduce heat in their homes without incurring unmanageable debt.

Supported by a USD 460,000 investment from the Global Innovation Fund, the project is developing low-cost, adaptable solutions tailored to informal or substandard housing. Alongside these measures, KOMIDA is launching Incremental Climate Adaptation Loans - purpose-built financing designed specifically to help low-income borrowers fund climate-related home upgrades rather than relying on generic credit.

Find more about this solution story here

Race to Zero Update:

Race to Zero Progress Report: Momentum Grows, Regulation Needed

The Race to Zero campaign has mobilized more than 15,700 members across 150 countries, making it the world’s largest coalition of non-state actors committed to halving global emissions by 2030.

Momentum is building across every region and sector, for example:

Asia-Pacific includes more than 2,000 members - including from major economies like India, China, Japan, and the UAE.
Six of the eight newest Race to Zero Accelerators that help onboard members are from developing countries, ensuring the transition is inclusive and regionally grounded.
In countries such as India, Mexico, and Australia, subnational actors are setting net zero targets ahead of their national governments. Last year alone, they invested USD 140 billion in climate action projects.

According to the Climate High-Level Champions:

“As Race to Zero enters its next phase, its focus will deepen: even more effort will be made to strengthen collaboration and implementation and help members move from commitment to credible delivery. The campaign will continue to offer a platform for those driving progress and advocating for ambitious climate policy to turn momentum into lasting, measurable change.”

Read the progress report here.

Join Our WhatsApp Broadcast Channel

The Champions have set up a WhatsApp Broadcast channel where they’ll be sharing our latest content and news. If you work with stakeholders, partners, or contacts who care about getting their stories out there, please share the link with them.