Green vs orange: business and activists battle Trump on climate in London

Some 2,000 business leaders, investors, policymakers and civil society representatives are expected to fill Guildhall in the City of London this Wednesday and Thursday for the Climate Innovation Forum. Topics for discussion range from accelerating the shift from carbon to renewable energy, especially through new clean technologies, to how to make business activities “nature positive”, to increasing transparency and disclosure.

The forum is the biggest of hundreds of events expected to draw around 30,000 people that make up London Climate Action Week, an annual festival of eco multi-stakeholderism that first took place in 2019. According to former Unilever chief executive Paul Polman, a leader of the purpose-driven business movement, the London gathering has now overtaken in importance a similar forum in New York in September for those seeking practical solutions to the threats posed by climate change.

A large orange shadow has been cast over proceedings by Donald Trump’s opposition to all things green. Companies that a year ago boasted about their efforts to net zero their carbon emissions and better steward nature are trying to avoid the attention of the US government by “green hushing”, carrying on as before but no longer talking about it. Polman worries that many companies are in fact faking their green hushing, claiming merely to go below the radar while back-tracking on commitments.

Yet he expects the mood in London to be upbeat, building on the UN oceans summit in Nice, where commitments to protect key areas of the sea and limit damaging activities such as bottom trawling exceeded expectations. One focus behind the scenes will be ensuring COP30 in Brazil this year delivers meaningful progress, especially improving financing for new technology and building nature markets that incentivise countries in the global South to preserve their rainforests.

In case anyone needs reminding why they are there, London is having a heatwave.