Climate Week NYC 2023 Highlights Six-Year Window to Halve Global Emissions

Climate Week New York City 2023 reinforced that the world has a six-year window to halve global emissions and begin restoring nature, with speakers including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressing that the energy transition is moving too slowly. CDP experts participated in high-level discussions covering mandatory disclosure, data standardisation, nature protection and just transition issues.

California passed two climate disclosure bills during September 2023, exemplifying the global expansion of mandatory environmental reporting. CDP committed to aligning with the forthcoming SEC climate disclosure rule, the European Sustainability Reporting Standards and the IFRS S2 climate standard from 2024. CDP also announced a collaboration with the Climate Data Steering Committee to support the Net-Zero Data Public Utility, which will provide core climate data from hundreds of high-impact companies at the COP28 proof-of-concept launch.

Multiple discussions at Climate Week emphasised that consistent, comparable, standardised data is the foundation for the UN climate agenda and for tracking business accountability. CDP and the NZDPU collaboration is designed to fill a critical gap in global climate data infrastructure. CDP also announced a new partnership with XBRL International to expand digital reporting capacity. The Inflation Reduction Act roundtable co-led by CDP and C40 highlighted the IRA as a major opportunity for cities, states and non-profits to advance both environmental resilience and socioeconomic equity.

CDP announced its intention to align with the TNFD framework from 2024 and to expand its questionnaire to cover oceans, biodiversity and plastic pollution. The organisation noted that 75,000 protesters marched through Manhattan during Climate Week, reflecting growing public pressure on companies and governments to accelerate action. As COP28 approached, CDP called on companies, financial institutions and the public sector to intensify environmental disclosure and take action commensurate with what science demands, particularly on nature-related risks that continue to lag behind climate ambition.

Key figure — Six-year deadline to halve global emissions