London Climate Action Week 2025

Karthika Duraisamy Sekar
Jul 4
5 min read

London to Belém and beyond

London Climate Action Week was held from June 21 - 29 2025, in London, marking its seventh year. LCAW is one of the world’s largest influential climate events that accelerates local and global climate action. One of the goals of LCAW is to have a ‘whole of society’ engagement, which it achieves by adopting a decentralised format where several organisations and institutions host events throughout the week. “London Climate Action Week is about harnessing the power of London for global climate action,” says London mayor Sadiq Khan.

LCAW was seen as a major milestone in shaping global climate action in the lead up to COP 30 in Belem, Brazil. Climate weeks are essential to keep up the momentum and push for action between the COPs. In the current geopolitical climate, LCAW is seen as the last major international gathering before COP30.

Takeaways of LCAW 2025

This year the talks focused on finance and insurance, resilience, nature, health, governance, climate politics and leadership.

1. Net zero delivery summit

The fourth annual Net Zero Delivery Summit, part of LCAW, highlighted London’s dedication to sustainable finance.

The summit brought discussions on,

Nature Finance - Over half of global GDP is dependent on nature. Nature-based Solutions could provide one-third of the mitigation solutions by 2030. Investing in nature is not only beneficial for the planet but also provides economic benefits. Yet it receives just 3% of public finance.

2025 was presented as a pivotal year for advancing nature finance, especially given the location of COP30 in Belém, Brazil. As we approach COP30, we have to align climate and nature as one conversation.

Carbon markets - Emerging as a powerful tool on the path to net zero. High integrity carbon markets are important in incentivising the carbon removal/reduction and managing climate risks. Price signal, behavioural economics and innovation in insurance are driving the carbon markets. Global cooperation, rules, transparency monitoring are essential but also challenging to achieve in the last few years.

Transition finance - The need to finance the decarbonisation of high-emitting sectors has never been more critical.

Singapore’s Ambassador for Climate Change, Mr. Ravi Menon, delivered a keynote address on transition finance at the summit. He emphasised the need for transition finance, especially in developing countries, where there are insufficient funds. He proposed blended finance and carbon credits as solutions to unlock transition finance.

Blended finance synergises public-private-philanthropic capital to make transition projects bankable. It utilises catalytic capital, like grants, and technical assistance, such as institutional support, to reduce risk and improve bankability.

Singapore launched a blended finance platform called FAST-P to support the green and transition projects in Asia. The government has pledged 500 million USD as concessional capital with a goal of raising 5 billion USD from private capital.

Carbon credits, on the other hand, are market-driven. They are generated by mitigation activities that reduce or remove carbon emissions, which entities can purchase to offset their hard-to-abate emissions. They can serve as an additional pathway for financing in developing countries and a credible way to meet emission reduction targets for corporate and sovereign buyers.

Mr. Menon also mentioned high-integrity transition credits, citing a good use case of phasing out coal in Asia. Singapore is testing the transition credits for two pilots involving coal-fired plants in the Philippines.

Singapore has signed agreements with seven other countries to purchase carbon credits compliant with Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, thus contributing to their decarbonisation efforts. He also emphasised the need for governments to encourage voluntary carbon credits to generate financing, as Singapore recently published a guide for companies to use carbon credits, following the UK.

2. Climate Innovation Forum

The Climate Innovation Forum is a flagship event of the LCAW where policymakers, business leaders, and activists gather to discuss climate innovation and policy, how to accelerate clean energy transition, the role of private finance in energy transition, resilient cities, insurance, and the adoption of renewables.

Some of the key highlights this year included,

UK’s vision to be a clean energy superpower.
The unveiling of a new Climate Finance Taskforce by London Mayor to help unlock capital investments for London’s net zero targets. He urged all sectors: ”We must be doers, not delayers”
Corporate transition plans to create a new generation of well-paid green jobs and build industrial resilience.
The discussion of a variety of tools and levers, such as policy reform and AI, to support the acceleration of clean energy transition.
Addressing the role of insurance and the growing recognition that climate risk is financial risk.
Talks on finance. Private Finance is essential to meet the $1.3 trillion per year required for Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDEs) and to finance the energy transition, which in particular is expected to be a key topic at COP30, with a particular focus on mobilising the USD $300 billion required by 2035.
Nature is an ally in the fight against climate change.
Highlighting the need to increase investments to build resilience in cities to combat climate change.

3. Climate Resilience Finance Summit

At the inaugural Climate Resilience Finance Summit, senior government ministers, finance and business leaders, and civil society discussed how to supercharge effective finance for climate resilience. The summit brought together stakeholders working in resilience and finance. Apart from the high-level plenary sessions, there were challenge sessions where insurers, investors, regulators and frontline people in resilience discussed leveraging finance and investments to respond to climate risks.

Resilience - Some of the challenges that businesses face in embedding resilience into their operations include misaligned incentives, missing metrics, and a lack of clear pathways in co-investing with governments. It is important to integrate resilience in national and corporate transition plans. Communities should be at the centre of decision-making. It would be better to reframe resilience as a strategic advantage rather than a cost.

Unlocking insurance and investments - Insurance has not been proactively derisking the resilient net-zero transition.

The investment case for adaptation resilience is not clear-cut, as it is difficult to put a price on future risk, unlike mitigation. The data available needs to be translated into a forward price curve for climate risks, which requires a collaborative effort from the private and public sectors. This would provide a clear investment case for the banks to address the cost.

Although there are insurance solutions to unlock investments, they are under-utilised due to the disconnection between mainstream finance and insurance markets. It is possible to increase the flows of climate finance by 40% if we effectively use the existing insurance markets.

A smarter way to unlock investments would be to bridge the available finance and data.

COPs as a tool - Discussions at COPs have improved the understanding of climate science, encouraged technological development, and helped countries identify their problems, inspiring communities to take action. It is time for us to take action based on the outcomes of the negotiations at the COPs. The climate crisis is obliging us to reinvent the economy and our behaviour.

4.Climate and Clean Air

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC), co-chaired by the UK and Brazil, highlighted the urgent need for action on super pollutants, which include Methane, black carbon, hydrofluorocarbons, tropospheric ozone, and nitrous oxide. Although responsible for approximately half of global warming and a major cause of air pollution, they are severely underrepresented in countries’ climate commitments. This is because carbon dioxide is focused on, to keep the otherwise complicated climate science simple.

However, reducing these super pollutants is a swift and cost-effective way to accelerate climate targets and improve health. To maximise these benefits, clean air initiatives must be fully woven into climate and development strategies, recognised not merely as an environmental concern but as a vital tool for enhancing health, promoting equity, and achieving significant climate progress.

Participants agreed that LCAW built momentum for elevating super pollutants mitigation on the global agenda, laying the groundwork for COP30. Ambassador André Aranha Corrêa do Lago, COP30 President-Designate, welcomed the momentum and reaffirmed Brazil’s commitment to elevating super pollutant action in the lead-up to COP30.

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