Highlights: 26 September 2026

That's a wrap for today, where Climate Week NYC took to the streets, parks and waterfront.

From neighborhood walks to community gatherings, Saturday’s events brought the climate conversation closer to the places people live. A few moments from across the city:

⭕ In Red Hook, Who Gets Shade? explored how trees, pavement and access to public space shape who feels extreme heat most.
⭕ At the Museum of Unnatural Disasters, Saad Amer CEO and Founder of Justice Environment spoke about the everyday effects of climate change, from pressures on workers to rising food prices.
⭕ In recognition of Climate Week NYC, Forbes has revisited some of Dr. Jane Goodall's most enduring lessons on conservation, action and our responsibility to the planet. 
⭕ Dr. Tim Tiutan brought a health perspective: healthcare is already dealing with the consequences of extreme heat, wildfire smoke, food and water insecurity.
⭕ Along the waterfront, participants set out on a 24-mile walk organized by 24 The Planet, raising funds for land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa.

There’s still one day to explore. Find Sunday’s events on the official Climate Week NYC calendar.

05.00pm ET

In the news today

A summary of how data and AI tech can speed up our responses to climate change, not replace them, by Foodtank. 

“Globally, we are seeing an increase in the weaponization of food,” says Michael Werz, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Food security is one of the few areas where AI doesn’t totally freak me out.”

The panelists called for optimism grounded in reality. Data can show the benefits of local renewable energy and the role of plant-rich diets in addressing climate change, but evidence alone rarely shifts behavior. Building the momentum to act still takes work, said our CEO, Helen Clarkson. “It doesn’t just magically happen.”

Photo credit: Food Tank

04.30pm ET

"We treat climate change like a problem for the next generation, when healthcare is already tackling its consequences in this one."

Dr. Tim Tiutan @doctortim.md shared how climate affects health, extreme heat, wildfire smoke, air pollution, food and water insecurity, infectious disease and mental health. Plus, how the best solutions come from collaborating and learning from one another. 

Photo courtesy of Dr. Tim Tiutan

04.00pm ET

In the news today

Greek Social Enterprise Enaleia, which works to reduce marine plastic pollution and promote sustainable fishing practices, makes New York Debut at Climate Week NYC 2026.

In The National Herald Sakellariou, Partnerships and Impact Coordinator for Enaleia, described Climate Week NYC events as both “inspirational and educational,” noting that some of the events offered a close look at how major companies approach sustainability.

02.00pm ET

Twenty-four miles along the New York waterfront, and they set off from Battery Park at seven this morning.

The fourth annual walk from 24 The Planet takes the whole day. It isn't a race, in the organizers' words: you set the pace, you take the breaks, you keep going. There are walking meditations, shared meals, a keynote, walking yoga and a DJ along the way, and the fundraising goes to land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa, at around $9.30 per 124 square meters permanently reforested.

Twenty-four hours in a day, twenty-four miles, and a city you only really see at walking pace.

A 24 mile walk to close out Climate Week in style

01.00pm ET

In recognition of Climate Week NYC, Forbes has revisited some of Dr. Jane Goodall's most enduring lessons on conservation, action and our responsibility to the planet. 

12pm ET

Saad Amer, Founder, CEO, Justice Environment visited the Climate Action Campaign's Museum of unnatural disasters. Saad Amer highlighted how climate change is affecting communities across the country in different ways. From the pressures facing workers to rising food prices, its impacts are part of everyday life, wherever people live.

11.30am ET

Jerome Foster II - TIME Next Generation Leader and Co-Founder, WaicUp.org said:

"New York really showed up this week. With the UN General Assembly and Climate Week NYC following close on the heels of Fashion Week, it felt like an incredible moment for the city, and for the communities coming together in it.

A few highlights so far: the Treehouse with the George Duke Foundation, the Nat Gala, and The Hub Live with Climate Group. Through it all, I’ve been keeping an ear out for the birdsong and the natural world that inspires so much of this work.

There’s real momentum here. I’m excited to see where it takes us next."

Video courtesy of Jerome Foster II.

11.00am ET

Some of today's most interesting programming isn't about the future at all. It's about a two hour walk through Red Hook.

Who Gets Shade?, led by Yuliya Dzyuban of Pratt Institute with the John Jay College Water and Climate Justice Lab and Resilient Red Hook, covers a mile and a half and asks a question most heat policy skips: who actually gets the trees. Temperature, shade, pavement, buildings, access to public space. All of it decides who suffers in a heatwave and who barely notices one.

It's the same argument that ran through The Hub Live about co-benefits and who feels them, made at street level with a clipboard.

Who Gets Shade? Exploring Heat in Red Hook

10.00am ET 

Business, circularity and food

The week's big questions, in weekend form. A stoop sale that keeps things out of landfill, a food drive at Tompkins Square Park, a world's fair of sustainability with live jazz, a room full of founders looking for funders, and a forum on the question that ran through The Hub Live all week: how the grid copes with what AI is about to ask of it. Join any of the following.

• Transformative Impact Summit 2026 - Transformative | Saturday, September 26, 9.30am | Founders, funders and policymakers, aimed squarely at breaking down the silos between them
• Love and Fear in a Warming World - Slam Out Loud and Climate Shift | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | A workshop on the emotional barriers that stop people acting, and what shifts them
• Super Stoop Day 2026 - Park Slope Civic Council | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | Brooklyn stoops turned into second-hand markets. Every item that changes hands stays out of landfill
• The 10th Annual Marketplace of the Future - Future Meets Present | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | A world's fair of sustainability, with exhibitors, panels, live jazz and art installations
• Climate Week x Bird Joy Games - That Quirky Bird Girl | Saturday, September 26, 1.00pm | A team scavenger hunt through the American Museum of Natural History. No expertise required
• AI Energy Superbrain: Powering the Data Center Era - Faradon AI | Saturday, September 26, 2.00pm | How the energy industry meets data center demand, on grid reliability, interconnection and utility planning
• Plant-Based Food Drive with Chilis on Wheels - Chilis on Wheels and Vegan Activist Alliance | Saturday, September 26, 4.00pm | Collecting plant-based donations in Tompkins Square Park

09.30am ET 

Art, film and performance - Facts move people slowly, and one thing this week kept returning to is that the climate conversation needs more than data to land. Today the city makes the argument a different way: dance on the Hudson, a marching band parade for the harbor, Indigenous artists on a future built from relationship rather than extraction, open studios, and a free film screening in a Queens library. Join any of the following, and bring someone who wouldn't come to a panel.

• The Amazon Through an Indigenous Lens - Leo Cerda of HAKHU and Nicole Briones of SE LUZ with 113 Spring | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | Indigenous leaders, artists and designers on a future built on relationship rather than extraction, with a communal breakfast
• The importance of artists and art-making in the climate movement - Sustaining All Life | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | A workshop on what creativity can do that argument can't
• Viva la Sound - City Island Oyster Reef | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | A free festival for the Long Island Sound with 30 plus environmental organizations, live music and food
• Homecoming: For The Harbor - LMCC | Saturday, September 26, 10.30am | A climate pep rally for New York Harbor, with marching bands, art workshops and a parade
• Better Planet Film Festival - Build A Better Planet | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | Independent environmental film at the National Lighthouse Museum
• An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power - Queens Public Library | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | A free screening at Glen Oaks Library, no registration needed
• Climate Week Open Studios - LMCC | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | The 2026 Arts Center residents open their studios to the public
• A Ritual of Story, Sound and Climate - Frank Salzano with Dear Crisis | Saturday, September 26, 3.00pm | Song circles and storytelling connecting New York's watershed to deep time
• THREAD by Kinesis Project dance theatre - Kinesis Project and Summer on the Hudson | Saturday, September 26, 5.45pm | A dance work on the threads connecting rock, rope, trees and people

09.00am ET

Justice, heat and who carries the cost - Climate doesn't land evenly on a city, and today's programme says so directly. Who gets the trees and who gets the asphalt. Who breathes what. Who pays for a wardrobe designed to be thrown away. And who has been organizing on all of it for longest, often with the least funding. Several of today's events put those questions at the centre rather than the edges. Join any of the following:

• BIPOC Climate Justice Summit - HBCU Green Fund, ACE Observatory, National Technical Association, Columbia Climate School and the American Museum of Natural History | Saturday, September 26, 9.30am | The sixth annual summit, on Indigenous leadership, extractive industries, defending scientific truth and reimagining philanthropy
• BIPOC Climate Connections - BIPOC Climate Connections | Saturday, September 26, 9.30am | A closing weekend gathering: yoga and sound baths in the morning, a cookout with a DJ in the afternoon
• Who Gets Shade? Exploring Heat in Red Hook - Pratt Institute | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | A mile and a half through Red Hook, looking at how trees, pavement and buildings decide who suffers in a heatwave
• ReWear the Revolution: Women, Fast Fashion, Eco Action - Sustaining All Life | Saturday, September 26, 2.00pm | On who carries the cost of fast fashion, with a catwalk of upcycled, message-bearing clothing
• The Black Hive @ 5 - The Black Hive at M4BL | Saturday, September 26, 3.00pm | Five years of Black-led climate justice across several floors: installations, film, panels, a pop-up library and After Dark programming into the night

08.30am ET

Get your hands dirty

Plenty of this week has been spent talking about resilience. Today you can go and build some. Volunteers are planting dunes at the Rockaways, clearing shoreline at Shirley Chisholm State Park, mulching street trees in Harlem and surveying a 300 acre wetland while the birds are still migrating through. None of it needs experience, most of it needs nothing but closed-toed shoes, and several of them feed you. Join any of the following.

• Harlem Street Tree Care - NYC Parks Stewardship | Saturday, September 26, 9.00am | Learn to aerate, cultivate, mulch and identify street trees, and why they matter
• Resilience Rising at the Rockaways - Surfrider Foundation and RISE | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | Planting native species to strengthen the dunes against sea-level rise and erosion. No experience needed, lunch provided
• 2 Hours Outside: The Cheapest Climate Intervention We're Not Doing - TerraLumia Foundation and Forest School Teacher Institute | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | A forest school session in Inwood Hill Park, and a panel on what education looks like if nature is the standard
• Jones Woods Park Forest Restoration - NYC Parks Stewardship | Saturday, September 26, 10.00am | Restoration work, and why species diversity keeps an ecosystem healthy
• SaturBAY 2026 - Guardians of Flushing Bay | Saturday, September 26, 10.30am | The annual celebration, marking a floating field station arriving in 2027
• Nature Walk and Wildlife Monitoring - Idlewild Environmental Center | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | Wildlife monitoring across 300 acres of wetland during migration season, recorded on iNaturalist
• Shirley Chisholm State Park Shore Clean Up and Hike - Appalachian Mountain Club and NYS Parks | Saturday, September 26, 11.45am | A guided naturalist walk followed by a shoreline cleanup
• Natural Bee Workshop - Time's Up! | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | Entomologists from Rutgers on identifying bee species, and why native bees matter
• Medicinal Garden Workshop - Time's Up! | Saturday, September 26, 2.00pm | Identifying, growing and using medicinal herbs, with herbal tea provided

07.30am ET

Not in New York? Three sessions you can join from anywhere today, and all three are about young people.

• Sustainable Living and Outdoor Ethics for Kids - LitterScout | Saturday, September 26, 8.00am | A youth-led session on cleanups, citizen science and cutting plastic pollution
• AI, Education and Youth Leadership - PURE | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | How AI and education can support youth-led climate solutions, with a focus on grassroots work in the Global South
• Where Physics Meets Climate - PULSE Global, AgroBiz.org and the UN Regional Centre of Expertise Detroit-Windsor | Saturday, September 26, 2.00pm | Students and physicists on how scientific curiosity turns into climate careers, and on closing the gaps in who gets into them

06.30am ET 

On foot and on two wheels

The easiest way to understand a city's climate is to move through it slowly. Where the shade falls, which streets hold the heat, what grows in the gaps between buildings, and how much of the waterfront you can actually reach on foot. A good part of today's programme is built around exactly that, from a full day's walk along the water to a free bike tour of Central Park and a repair class that sends you home able to fix your own brakes. Join any of the following, or just pick a direction and walk.

• A 24 mile walk to close out Climate Week in style - 24 The Planet | Saturday, September 26, 7.00am | Twenty-four miles along the waterfront from Battery Park, with walking meditations, shared meals and a DJ, raising funds for land restoration in sub-Saharan Africa
• Stroller Walk in Prospect Park: Babies for Climate - soté baby | Saturday, September 26, 9.00am | A relaxed stroll through Prospect Park for parents, expecting, new and seasoned
• Free Central Park Bike Tour - Holland Bikes | Saturday, September 26, 11.00am | A guided ride through Central Park, free and open to all
• Climate and Culture Green Map Tour - Green Map System and ABC No Rio | Saturday, September 26, 12.00pm | A walking tour of sustainable community spaces in the Lower East Side, starting at a passive house culture center under construction
• Outdoor Bike Repair Class - Time's Up! | Saturday, September 26, 1.00pm | Learn to fix your own bike: repair, maintenance and tune-ups
• Community Garden Tours with LUNGS - LUNGS | Saturday, September 26, 3.00pm | A guided tour of East Village community gardens and what climate innovation looks like at street level
  

06.00am ET 

The weekend is where Climate Week NYC belongs to the city itself. Today's calendar is cleanups and bike repair, garden tours and film screenings, a 24 mile walk along the waterfront, and a summit at the Natural History Museum. Most of it is free, and most of it is outdoors.

Find your own with the events calendar and map.