“London isn’t just calling, it’s cooking” - London Climate Action Week 2026

Isabella Mariani
Jul 7
3 min read

Across a heatwave-struck London, 75,000 people gathered for London Climate Action Week 2026 (LCAW), Europe's largest independent climate gathering. António Guterres' remark that “London isn’t just calling – it’s cooking” captured the week’s urgent push to move from climate commitments to implementation, focusing on finance, adaptation and resilience.

Here are some of the main takeaways:

1. The Climate Innovation Forum:

As the flagship event with the largest corporate presence at LCAW 2026, the Climate Innovation Forum brought together policymakers, business leaders, investors, and civil society to bridge the gaps between climate innovation, investment, and delivery.

Some of the key highlights this year included:

Recognition that successful climate innovation technologies face a bottleneck: they must be implemented at scale.
Conversations across financial stakeholders focused on:
- The role of private finance and capital markets in funding both mitigation and adaptation.
- Deeper discussion of scalable and investable blended finance and nature-based solutions.
Increased focus on nature-positive investment and integrating biodiversity into business and financial decision-making alongside net-zero objectives.
Calls for stronger international cooperation and public-private partnerships to accelerate implementation ahead of COP31.

2. GenZero and Singapore NCCS Roundtable - Singapore at LCAW 2026

Ravi Menon, Ambassador for Climate Action, Government of Singapore, featured at the Nature Carbon Project Financing Roundtable to discuss how to scale blended finance and carbon markets for nature-based solutions in Southeast Asia.

Singapore’s regional climate finance agenda is broadening from transition finance to include nature finance and adaptation. While last year’s emphasis was on using blended finance and carbon credits to support the decarbonisation of high-emitting sectors, Singapore is now applying similar tools to mobilise private investment into nature projects.

Blended finance is becoming central to nature finance. Although Southeast Asia has significant potential for nature-based solutions, uncertain returns and difficult-to-measure benefits deter private investment. Public or philanthropic funding can reduce early risks and unlock private capital at scale.

Carbon markets remain central to Singapore’s approach. Rather than abandoning carbon credits after concerns over quality and over-crediting, Singapore is focusing on rebuilding integrity through Article 6-compliant credits, voluntary carbon market guidance, partnerships with integrity bodies, and the UK-Kenya-Singapore Coalition to Grow Carbon Markets.

3. London Climate Resilience Finance Summit:

A relatively new flagship event concentrated on adaptation finance, it addresses the growing recognition that adaptation has been underfunded compared with emissions reduction and net-zero transition finance. It therefore explores the investment needed to safeguard economies and infrastructure.

Some of the key highlights this year included:

Public-private risk sharing became a central theme, with Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), insurers and investors partnering to explore how guarantees, concessional capital, and insurance can make resilience projects commercially viable.
Finance should move before disasters happen. The Summit framed early resilience investment as more economically sensible than repeated disaster recovery, especially when its present-day value can be shown through stronger creditworthiness, lower insurance costs and healthier balance sheets.
Insurance can help de-risk resilience investment by recognising measures that reduce climate exposure, such as flood defences. This gives investors greater confidence that the project is lower-risk and easier to finance.
Finance has to start with communities. Speakers repeatedly stressed locally led adaptation tailored to local climate risk profiles, alongside simpler access to finance and faster delivery to protect vulnerable communities, infrastructure, and cities.

4. What’s Next For This Year’s COPs

Heat-struck LCAW 2026 was laced with palpable urgency for climate action. Banks, insurers, and investors showed growing readiness to collaborate on practical financial solutions that can support implementation at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP31), and United Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP17).

With unprecedented discussion of Nature-Based Solutions at scale, LCAW 2026 may prove instrumental for COP17. Nature-Based Solutions, which support carbon storage, climate resilience, and ecosystem protection, could help countries turn biodiversity commitments into practical investment.

As well as strengthening financial partnerships, LCAW highlighted how COP31 can use blended finance, insurance, high-integrity carbon markets and locally led adaptation finance as tools to implement climate technologies and invest in projects at scale.

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Footnotes

Blended finance: Using public or philanthropic funding alongside private investment to reduce risk and attract more capital to climate or development projects.
Nature-based solutions: Investments in ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and mangroves that help mitigate climate change, improve resilience and generate environmental and community benefits.
Nature-positive investment: Investing in projects or businesses that protect, restore or enhance ecosystems and biodiversity while generating financial returns.
Voluntary Carbon Market: a market where companies or individuals buy carbon credits by choice, usually to offset emissions or support climate projects, rather than because a government regulation requires them to.