From Tilak´s Substack

By Tilak Doshi

As New York City hosts Climate Week NYC and the Global Renewables Summit 2025 this week with much fanfare, the absence of major global leaders at these events speaks volumes. Dubbed by its organisers as “the world’s largest climate event” alongside the annual UN General Assembly, it boasts over 1,000 events and a theme of ‘Power On’ to rally climate action. Sixteen years after its first ‘climate week’ in 2009, the event is meant to represent a high profile gathering of senior representatives of government, business and NGOs to provide momentum for the upcoming UN climate change conference in Brazil (COP30) in November.

Yet the guest list tells a different story: only three heads of state of relatively minor countries — Kenya’s President William Ruto, the Bahamas’ Prime Minister Philip Davis and Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne — are confirmed. This is a far cry from the global heavyweight presence one might expect. The unelected Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission and Brussels’s chief green cheerleader, is also expected to attend.

Out of a list of 29 confirmed speakers, those representing NGOs constituted almost half of the total. Government representatives represented 28%, academia just over 3% and the rest (17%) represented for-profit businesses. NGO representatives attending the NYC gala were largely funded by the usual Left-wing billionaire foundations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Open Society Foundations, Ford Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, ClimateWorks Foundation, IKEA Foundation, Kellogg Foundation and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

New York’s Net Zero Misadventure

This stark contrast between the event’s grandiose rhetoric and its lacklustre political turnout signals a deeper truth – the global Net Zero movement is losing steam.

New York’s own energy missteps mirror a broader retreat from radical climate policies. The state’s Climate Act of 2019 discourages fossil fuels across the board. In the realm of electricity, the Act requires 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030 and 100% from “zero emissions” sources by 2040. “Renewables” and “zero emissions” basically mean more wind turbines, solar panels and grid-scale batteries.

New York’s reliance on intermittent renewables — particularly offshore wind — has destabilised its electrical power grid, leading to some of the highest electricity rates in the nation. In 2025, average US city electricity rates hit 19 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), a 46% increase since 2016, with New Yorkers paying even steeper bills, at 31 cents per kWh.

The Democrat-run state government has long opposed the development of natural gas infrastructure – even as New York sits within easy reach of the Marcellus and Utica shale basins, which hold some of the world’s cheapest and most abundant natural gas. State authorities have spent years blocking pipeline projects that could have brought reliable, low-cost energy to millions of households. Instead, the state imports liquefied natural gas (LNG) at high costs from Trinidad and Tobago and Canada to meet regional energy demand of the US Northeast.

According to Francis Menton, a keen observer of the state’s energy affairs,

More than halfway to the 2030 deadline, the progress toward the 70% renewable electricity goal has actually been negative (due to the premature closure of two large nuclear power plants). On the natural gas front, two big pipeline projects have been blocked by the state environmental regulator (DEC) on phony grounds of ‘water quality’. And meanwhile there are plans for big new electricity consumers (chip plants and data centres) in the upstate area.

As ordinary residents bear the brunt of soaring power prices, policymakers are quietly backpedalling on the very climate commitments once heralded as moral imperatives. The reality of high energy costs, unreliable grids and public pushback is forcing a reckoning, not just in New York but across other Left-progressive states and regions like California and the European Union.

In California, Sacramento lawmakers are now being forced into a messy compromise to ease restrictions on oil drilling in the face of mounting public anger over gasoline and power prices. After years of cracking down on California’s oil industry, Governor Gavin Newsom and the Democrat legislature in a complete about-turn passed bills to get Kern County oil wells pumping again to avoid soaring gasoline prices. In the EU, it was reported last week that member states such as France and Poland are openly rebelling against Brussels’s 2035 climate diktats ahead of COP30.

The irony is stark. A state surrounded by shale gas fields has chosen to import LNG at high cost and bet on wind farms that struggle to deliver consistent power, leaving residents and businesses to foot the bill. This policy dogma is unravelling. Governor Kathy Hochul, a staunch advocate of wind energy, is now exploring nuclear options as offshore wind projects falter. Two major gas pipeline that were rejected in 2020 are now being reconsidered, a tacit admission that green policies have driven energy costs to unsustainable levels.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has championed renewables, yet the state’s grid reliability remains precarious, with warnings of blackouts looming as demand from AI data centres surges. New York’s energy reality mirrors a broader trend – the collision of ideological climate goals with the practical need for affordable, reliable power.

The Global Climate Agenda’s Waning Momentum

Climate Week NYC’s lack of high-profile global leaders is not an anomaly but a symptom of a broader shift. The event, meant to set the stage for COP30 in Belém, Brazil, struggles to maintain its clout. While the Climate Group touts “record government engagement” with over 1,000 events, the absence of leaders from major economies like the US, China, India or key EU nations is revealing. Reuters, a newswire which cheerleads Net Zero policies, acknowledges a “Trump chill factor” dampening enthusiasm, despite former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres framing the event’s turnout as hugely enthusiastic and a positive reaction to US policy shifts.

Globally, the Net Zero agenda is faltering and the tide is turning against it. As one leading critic of the green agenda put it, “even the New York Times, ‘Masthead for the Blob’, is lamenting the collapse of the Paris Agreement hopes and dreams”. Anthony Watts, the founder of the leading climate contrarian blog Watts Up With That? observes that things must have become so self-evident when even David Wallace-Wells, the self-professed chief chronicler of ‘climate catastrophe’ for the New York Times, admits “what has long been obvious to anyone outside the climate activist bubble: the age of Paris is over, and the world has lost its appetite for climate politics”.

COP30 Implications: A Pivot to Pragmatism?

As Climate Week NYC sets the stage for COP30, the event’s shortcomings foreshadow challenges for the Brazil climate conference. COP30 aims to strengthen Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and secure climate finance for vulnerable nations, but the tepid political engagement in New York suggests a lack of global consensus. The ‘Power On’ theme, meant to inspire action, feels hollow when major economies prioritise energy security over emissions targets. President Trump’s far-reaching energy counter-revolution, which took the US out of the Paris Agreement and seeks ‘energy dominance’ based on fossil fuels suggests that COP30 will be sorely lacking in international commitments to Net Zero policy targets.

New York’s backpedalling offers a glimpse into COP30’s potential trajectory. Climate Week NYC 2025, with its parade of NGO talking heads and sparse political heavyweights, encapsulates the Net Zero movement’s crossroads. New York’s energy woes — high prices, grid instability, threats of blackouts — reflect a broader global reckoning and a retreat from renewables dogma. The state’s flirtation with nuclear and gas pipelines, like California’s softened oil policies and the EU’s wavering 2035 targets, signals a shift toward pragmatism. The path forward requires acknowledging that energy reliability and affordability are non-negotiable.

New York City’s Climate Week echo chamber, dominated by well-funded NGOs, ignores these realities, preaching to a choir increasingly drowned out by public discontent. COP30 must move beyond symbolic gestures and address the economic fallout of Net Zero policies or risk further irrelevance.

This article was first published in The Daily Sceptic ( https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/24/the-decline-of-climate-week-nyc-shows-the-net-zero-dream-is-dying/ )