As Climate Week NYC approaches, two US leaders working in different spaces – one bringing together states, cities and businesses across North America, the other aligning labor and environmental movements in the US – arrive at a similar conclusion: the moment has moved past connection. It's about delivery and real-world outcomes.
We spoke separately with Angela Barranco, Executive Director of Climate Group North America, and Jason Walsh, Executive Director of the BlueGreen Alliance, about what effective leadership looks like now, why breaking down silos is essential, where the biggest opportunities and risks are, and how Climate Week NYC can help decision-makers move from connection to implementation.
Urgent commitments
“It has been amazing to see the evolution in urgency leading up to Climate Week NYC, particularly over the past few years,” says Barranco. “A few years ago, much of the focus was on connectivity, making sure you were in the right conversations and developing thought leadership that could grow over the long term. What we are seeing now, especially among subnational leaders in the US and around the world, is an interest not only in building networks and connections, but in exchanging actual solutions.
Across governments and the private sector, leaders are asking: How do I get this done? How did you get this done? How can we work together? I see that as a primary focus of Climate Week NYC this year in a way we have not seen before, and that’s really exciting. Climate Week NYC has an important role to play because, on any given day, it’s easy to become distracted within your own silo. Climate Week NYC helps break down those natural barriers to communication and collaboration. It creates an important moment for people to come together and move solutions forward.”
Jason Walsh sees the same urgency from a different angle; not just what gets committed to, but what it takes to make a commitment last. “We'd like to see a commitment from leaders to help build the coalitions necessary to win and defend climate policy that delivers concrete economic benefits to working people and the communities they live in. For the last 20 years, BlueGreen Alliance has been aligning the labor and environmental movements in the US toward that goal. In this difficult and fraught moment, we believe more strongly than ever that worker-centred climate policy is not only the best policy approach. It's really the only politically sustainable path forward."
Effective climate leadership
For Walsh, that starts with who’s in the room. “Effective climate leadership means engaging with and learning from, a broad range of stakeholders, in particular those who can speak to the needs of working people and the communities they live and work in,” he says. “The writing of the Inflation Reduction Act is a strong example of this done well. Leaders in the White House and Congress worked with a range of stakeholders, BlueGreen Alliance included, to design policy that delivered real benefits to workers and communities.
Three policies stand out:
1. Labor standards were attached to clean energy tax credits for the first time, the biggest drivers of clean energy deployment in the legislation. This helped an industry where solar and wind jobs had been largely non-union with mixed, sometimes poor, job quality.
2. Investment was directed toward domestic clean technology manufacturing in the U.S., not just deployment, correcting fifteen years of under-investment that let China build dominance of clean tech supply chains.
3. And targeted investments through bonus tax credits went to coal communities that had experienced the economic pain of the transition without the gain due to closures of mines or power plants.
We didn't get everything we wanted. The US still needs a far better safety net for dislocated workers, and that work is ongoing. But the ability to drive investment into these communities was working as designed.”
Barranco sees that same convergence playing out at the subnational level. “What has fascinated me is how widespread these issues have become from both a resilience and mitigation perspective,” she says. “Traditionally, we have tended to consider those things separately. But increasingly, the policy and implementation landscapes are becoming much more interconnected. States, cities and businesses are paying close attention to resilience because climate impacts affect their bottom line, their workforce, their supply chains, their communities and their five- or ten-year capital plans. All of these considerations are now coming together. At the same time, everybody brings something different to the table. Policy experts need to be connected with the people implementing solutions, the people who understand financing and the people working across different sectors. Effective leadership means bringing those perspectives together.”
Untapped opportunities
Barranco points first to breaking down silos. “One of the biggest opportunities is breaking down silos. It is very easy to get caught up in your particular sector, your particular company or even your particular part of the C-suite. What is so valuable about our work, and Climate Week NYC, is that we knock down some of those barriers. We bring government and corporate leaders to the same table, alongside people from different sectors who may be tackling the same issue from different angles. Leaders should take maximum advantage of that opportunity. Look around, see who else is grappling with the same challenge and make them your next best friend. We have to cut through the red tape and keep moving. There is also an opportunity for greater boldness. No one is coming to save us - we are the solution we have been waiting for. Leaders who are ready to move beyond commitments should embrace that mindset.”
For Walsh, the opportunity is more specific. “A largely untapped opportunity is to fully leverage registered apprenticeship and training programs in manufacturing, construction and utilities, the sectors at the centre of the transition. These programs train workers to the highest skill levels and give them a real stake in the clean energy economy. The Inflation Reduction Act did this for construction jobs, through apprenticeship utilization bonuses tied to clean energy tax credits, but not for manufacturing jobs. That's where the work still needs to happen.”
Hopes for this Climate Week NYC
“For me, success is about accelerating partnerships,” says Barranco. “At Climate Group, we see ourselves as connectors and force multipliers across sectors and across public and private institutions. Our role is to help bring people together, focus their efforts and get things moving. Success might be a partnership that did not begin at this Climate Week NYC at all. It could have started at last year’s Climate Week NYC, or at a previous US Leaders’ Forum in Washington DC, when a coalition of people came together around an idea and then went on to deliver something tangible. We also have to recognise that change is hard and it takes time. We are often sowing seeds that will not bloom immediately. Our job is to care for them, feed them and keep watering them.”
Walsh’s hopes are tied to the event being hosted by the BlueGreen Alliance. “Our event on Monday September 21, 2026, is titled: Worker Powered Climate Action: How can labor and environmental movements join forces?” he says. “We want people walking into the room to understand that we have twenty years of proven experience aligning the labor and environmental movements in support of climate action. Our coalition is unique, and even more powerful after two decades of these movements working side by side. We want people to walk out understanding that coalitions like ours represent the best path forward for climate policy and politics.”
For additional commentary and interview requests, please contact Tom Nice, tnice@climategroup.org.