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The Climate Innovation Forum’s high-level programme convenes climate leaders and innovators to accelerate action and close gaps in implementation, investment and innovation between COPs during London Climate Action Week.
Guildhall’s Great Hall will host the Forum’s full-day plenary bringing together visionary climate leaders from across business, government, finance, the UN, and civil society. They will share key announcements, innovative solutions and pioneering collaborations aligned with the Global Climate Action Agenda.
The opening segment will serve as a diplomatic launch for London Climate Action Week 2026, reinforcing its mission to harness the unique power of London for global climate action at this mid-point between COPs. Subsequent sessions will explore critical themes including energy, finance, resilience and AI, spotlighting the solutions and partnerships turning commitments into real-world progress.
In this opening segment, the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC and COP Presidencies will share their perspectives on the global climate action agenda, highlighting priorities and strategies to accelerate progress toward 2030. Speakers will explore how international commitments are being translated into tangible action, the opportunities for global collaboration, and the steps needed to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
London, a global financial and cultural hub, alongside the UK, is uniquely positioned to take a leading role in the transition to a net zero, climate-resilient, nature-positive future. This high-level session will examine the strategic, systemic approaches and partnerships being deployed to translate ambition into impactful action, and will explore:
The Business Breakthrough Barometer is the annual pulse check on the global net-zero transition, developed by the WBCSD, Breakthrough Agenda, and Climate High-Level Champions. This session will unveil the findings of the 2026 Barometer, bringing together insights from leading businesses worldwide on the pace of progress, the actions already underway, and the critical priorities needed now to accelerate the transition and unlock investment at scale.
Despite recent political and economic headwinds, the transition to a low-carbon, nature-positive, and more resilient economy continues to unlock new sources of growth and competitive advantage. This session will focus on how progressive organisations are responding to the geopolitical landscape and taking action on climate and nature to strengthen resilience, reduce costs, and open new revenue streams. Speakers will discuss:
With recent energy shocks exposing the vulnerabilities of fossil-fuel-dependent systems, scaling affordable, reliable, and low-carbon power is now central to energy security, economic resilience, and climate progress. This session will explore how firm clean power, storage, modernised transmission, and digitalised electricity networks are being deployed at scale to create energy systems that are resilient, investment-ready, and aligned with climate goals. In this solution-oriented discussion, speakers will explore:
As the global energy transition accelerates, energy efficiency is emerging as the critical first step – the fastest, most cost‑effective way to reduce emissions, manage rising electricity demand, and strengthen energy resilience. In this fireside chat, we explore how efficiency is driving electrification and renewable integration, enabling smarter energy use before adding new supply, and supporting more decentralised, dynamic, and responsive systems. Grounded in real‑world innovation and collaboration the session will highlight how an efficiency‑first approach is already delivering measurable impact in an increasingly complex and energy‑intensive world.
With the climate clock ticking and global tensions rising, standing together to deliver ambitious climate action has never been more urgent. This keynote will inspire and challenge leaders to break barriers, forge global alliances, and accelerate climate action at the scale the planet demands.
Mobilising the trillions needed to deliver global sustainability goals requires innovative approaches to finance. This session will explore how public and private capital can be deployed strategically to unlock investment, with speakers sharing real-world examples that are delivering impact including:
Despite growing focus on resilience, a huge gap in investment and implementation leaves billions of people, businesses, and financial systems at risk as climate impacts intensify. Moving from risk to resilience requires coordinated action, strategic investment and a deeper recognition of the role that nature and biodiversity play in stabilising economies and protecting communities. This session will explore how resilience can be strengthened and adaptation strategies can be embedded at speed and scale, with speakers discussing:
As geopolitical volatility, climate risk, and rising demand for critical minerals reshape global trade, building supply chains that are both resilient and sustainable has become a strategic imperative. This session will explore how businesses are rethinking supply chains through circularity, resource efficiency, and risk diversification to navigate disruption while supporting the net-zero transition.
Speakers will discuss:
Digital technologies are rapidly reshaping the climate and energy landscape, enabling smarter systems, faster innovation, and more efficient use of resources across sectors. At the same time, deploying these tools comes with challenges, from energy use in data centres to infrastructure demands. This session will explore how organisations can harness AI, data, and digital infrastructure to deliver real climate impact while managing environmental trade-offs. Speakers will discuss:
With the Global Climate Action Agenda demanding real-world delivery at speed and scale, this session celebrates the partnerships and initiatives turning bold pledges into tangible impact. Attendees will hear stories of collaboration, creativity, and courage that are reshaping what’s possible for climate action today. Speakers will explore:
As the 2030 horizon approaches, this closing keynote confronts the hard truths of climate progress and the high stakes of inaction.
As climate and biodiversity agendas converge, the Nature Stage at the Climate Innovation Forum demonstrates nature’s emergence as a central climate adaptation and mitigation solution.
This stage aims to set the nature scene for the week, as it convenes global policymakers, corporates, investors, insurers and innovators.
The conversations will focus on transforming nature from a climate risk into a strategic asset.
The stage will case study practical solutions that are securing supply chains and unlocking scalable nature investment through market mechanisms.
Positioned at the intersection of climate, nature, finance and technology, the stage focuses on implementation, delivering measurable, investable and insurable pathways to a nature-positive economy.
Nature is emerging as a powerful pathway to deliver resilience at scale—protecting coastlines from sea-level rise, securing water and food systems, and stabilising critical biomes that underpin livelihoods. When designed and implemented effectively, these approaches generate substantial economic value whilst delivering competitive, risk-adjusted returns for investors. Drawing on insights from experienced practitioners, speakers will discuss:
Climate change is intensifying droughts, floods and water scarcity across the globe, turning water security into a critical strategic risk for businesses and societies alike. This fireside chat explores how working with nature—through ecosystem restoration, forest preservation, natural infrastructure and smarter land management—can help secure reliable water supplies.
Through case studies, this session explores how organisations can identify, assess, and manage nature-related risks using emerging frameworks and data tools. It examines how approaches such as the TNFD, combined with satellite imagery, geospatial data, and other nature-risk analytics, can help organisations map exposure across assets, supply chains, and geographies. Speakers will discuss:
This fireside chat explores how marine and coastal nature-based solutions are being structured to deliver climate and biodiversity benefits, whilst supporting resilient coastal economies. It will examine the role of public–private partnerships, policy support, and financial innovation in de-risking early-stage investments and enabling scale.
Businesses operating across food, fibre, and natural product supply chains are increasingly investing directly in nature to enhance resilience, manage risk, and secure long-term access to critical natural resources. This session will outline where case studies are delivering real resilience strategies, followed by a discussion of how we can adopt learning to secure supply chains. Speakers will discuss:
As organisations accelerate toward net zero and nature-positive goals, high-integrity carbon and biodiversity credits are emerging as critical tools for achieving net zero and nature positive. But confidence in these markets depends on durability, credibility and measurable impact. This session explores how robust standards, transparent methodologies and long-term stewardship can ensure nature-based credits deliver real climate mitigation and biodiversity gains. Speakers will discuss:
As climate, biodiversity, and nature-related risks increasingly shape economic stability, effective collaboration between the finance sector and governments is critical to scaling investment in nature and building resilient supply chains and economies. This session explores the role of governments in creating the policy, regulatory, and financial conditions needed to unlock private investment in nature-based solutions. The session will conclude with reflections on priorities and expectations for COP17 Biodiversity in Armenia. Speakers with discuss:
The Sustainable Finance Stage, hosted in partnership with UNEP FI, is a focused programme dedicated to accelerating the transition to a resilient, low-carbon, nature-positive and inclusive economy.
It brings together leaders from banking, investment, policy and development finance to drive practical, investment-led solutions.
Anchored in the shift from innovation to implementation, the programme focuses on how sustainable finance is moving beyond commitments to unlock real, investable opportunities.
In a context of evolving market conditions, rising capital costs and increased scrutiny on transition credibility, it explores how capital can be mobilised at scale to deliver bankable projects, manage risk and generate sustainable returns.
Key questions:
Financing the energy transition is becoming more complex amid higher interest rates, rising cost of capital, and growing pressure on energy security across the UK, Europe and globally. At the same time, the need to rapidly scale investment into clean, resilient energy systems has never been greater.
This session will explore how financial institutions and policymakers can mobilise capital at speed and scale, unlocking investment into renewables, grids, and enabling infrastructure while delivering risk-adjusted returns. With a focus on bankability and implementation, it will highlight the role of blended finance, transition-linked instruments, and de-risking mechanisms in accelerating capital deployment in today’s market conditions.
Key questions:
As countries move from target-setting to implementation, meeting national and global climate goals requires a step change in how capital is mobilised and deployed. The challenge is no longer ambition but translating commitments into bankable pipelines, innovative products and investable opportunities.
This session will spotlight innovative financing solutions already supporting climate goals in practice from transition and blended finance solutions to outcome-based models that align public and private capital. With a focus on implementation, it will explore how financial institutions can unlock new investment opportunities across sectors and markets.
Key Questions
Emerging markets sit at the centre of the global transition representing both the greatest financing need and the largest opportunity to deliver sustainable growth. From energy and infrastructure to climate resilience and inclusive development, achieving sustainability objectives at scale will depend on mobilising significantly more private capital into these markets.
This session will explore how financial institutions, development finance actors and policymakers can unlock investment at scale by addressing structural risks, improving bankability and strengthening local financial ecosystems. With a focus on implementation and returns, it will highlight innovative financing models including blended finance, risk-sharing mechanisms and local currency solutions that can accelerate progress towards climate and sustainable development goals while delivering investable opportunities.
Key questions:
Key questions:
Nearly half of global emissions come from how we make and use materials, products and food. Delivering climate action at scale requires a fundamental shift to circular, zero-waste systems.
Located at the heart of Guildhall’s reimagined Courtyard, the Circularity and Zero Waste Stage will convene policymakers, practitioners, investors and innovators to showcase circular models and sustainable waste management practices already moving from principle to implementation.
The stage arrives at a pivotal moment: building towards COP31, where the Presidency and High-Level Champion have committed to spotlight the role of zero waste and circularity, building on the recognition given to it in the first Global Stocktake.
The programme is shaped by two programme partners:
The Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which leads the global circular economy agenda, will lead a session on critical minerals and the materials powering the energy and digital transitions, examining how circular approaches strengthen supply-chain resilience and unlock new economic opportunity.
WRAP, whose work drives transformation across global food and textiles systems, will host sessions on accelerating the wider ‘stuff’ transition, circularity as a driver of growth, tackling food waste at scale, the mainstreaming of textile reuse, and a panel of leading circular-living influencers.
Together, the programme explores the policy and finance levers turning circular models into competitive advantage, and what implementation actually looks like at scale.
45% of emissions come from how we produce and consume. Circular economy approaches, based on the three principles of eliminating waste and pollution, circulating products and materials at their highest value, and regenerating nature, have a key role to play in tackling these emissions.
Critical minerals are central to delivering climate goals, underpinning the energy transition and a range of other sectors undergoing rapid transformation. With demand set to rise sharply, circular economy approaches offer a pathway to meet this growth while strengthening resilience, reducing environmental impact, unlocking innovation, and enabling economic diversification.
The opportunity is not theoretical: leading companies are already putting circular economy approaches into practice across products and value chains. Hear from market leaders how these strategies are being applied in real-world settings, and what it takes to make them work.
As momentum builds, how can the circular economy opportunity for critical minerals—and beyond—be translated into tangible progress over the next 12 months? This closing discussion will reflect on key priorities for leaders across business and policy, and the role global moments such as COP31 can play in accelerating climate action at scale.
The energy transition is underway, even if there remains a huge amount to do. But 45% of all emissions come not directly from energy use but from stuff: the food and products we consume every day. And the ‘stuff’ transition is falling behind.
This session makes the case for what it will take to close the gap and why the opportunity is too big to ignore.
One third of all food produced is lost or wasted each year, generating nearly 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This session makes the case that reducing food waste is one of the most immediate, underinvested, and high-impact opportunities available to us.
We will demonstrate how tackling food waste delivers across the board: cost savings and stronger margins for businesses, greater supply chain resilience, more money in consumers’ pockets, lower emissions, and measurable gains for nature.
The barriers to reducing food waste are not a lack of solutions, they are a lack of speed and scale. From farms and supply chains to retailers and households, the tools, technologies and business models already exist.
We will show how the organisations leading the way are making them work in practice, and what it takes to replicate and accelerate that progress across the food system.
Food waste is a systemic challenge, and it demands a systemic response. Voluntary collective action is already delivering real economic, social, and environmental results across the Global South, with lessons that apply everywhere.
We will show how alignment across the supply chain unlocks benefits no single actor could achieve alone and what it takes to do it at scale.
Food waste has passionate and influential champions. Hear from the influencers and content creators inspiring millions to think differently about food, and what their reach means for driving real change.
AI Solutions Showcase
Hosted by: Climate Action Coalition
Overarching theme:
AI & the Energy Transition: Opportunity, Impact and Accountability
The rise of AI across society is one of the greatest challenges to the energy transition, with electricity demand for data centres and computing expected to increase significantly over the next decade and beyond. Yet AI also presents one of the greatest opportunities to reinvent and reimagine how to better produce energy and to reduce energy demand, through optimisation, digitisation of processes, greater efficiencies and machine learning. The inaugural AI Solutions Showcase is the first event at LCAW to bring to the stage some of those solutions that can make a significant difference in helping to accelerate the energy transition at the same time as reducing emissions and reducing costs. The showcase is the culmination of the work of the Climate Action Coalition’s AI Solutions Taskforce and will highlight the report’s recommendations in addition to providing a unique platform to highlighting how AI solutions can provide the answers to the challenges we will face for the future. The showcase will be divided into two key areas of focus- recognising that solutions can be found both across the AI energy ecosystem as well as delivering positive change in our wider energy systems.
Who will attend?
120 cross-sector leaders from business, finance, policy, and civil society, united by a shared ambition to accelerate the energy transition through AI-enabled innovation and collaboration.
For more information, contact us at [email protected]
This opening session sets the scene for the event, framing the central question of whether artificial intelligence can deliver a net positive impact on the energy transition – and the conditions required for that outcome to be realised at scale.
This session will explore how AI is moving beyond experimentation into measurable, system-wide impact across energy systems and infrastructure, with speakers presenting real-world solutions and discussing:
As AI becomes a major energy consumer, the focus is shifting from awareness to implementation of solutions that actively reduce its footprint. This session highlights real-world innovations already lowering the energy, carbon, and resource intensity of AI systems, alongside the governance needed to scale them. Speakers will present real-world solutions and address:
Position yourself as an industry leader by joining a stellar line up of speakers.
Host a roundtable: shape a high level dialogue and build strategic relationships.
Establish a physical presence through an exhibition stand to showcase your products and services.
A unique opportunity for your organisation to convene your stakeholders during London Climate Action Week.
Partner with Climate Action for evening networking drinks (1800-1930) for Forum delegates and Gala Dinner guests.
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