President Joe Biden Delivers Address on the Climate Crisis and His Unprecedented Climate Legacy at Bloomberg Global Business Forum

Welcomed by Mike Bloomberg, President Biden underscored his Administration's impact delivering the most ambitious climate agenda ever and restoring America's climate leadership around the world

Other distinguished speakers were Forum partners World Bank President Ajay Banga and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, along with Alphabet & Google President & Chief Investment Officer Ruth Porat, Actor and Activist Jane Fonda

New York, NY - Today, Bloomberg Philanthropies, in partnership with the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF), convened leaders across public policy, business, technology, and finance during the Bloomberg Global Business Forum in New York, where President Joe Biden spoke about how his Administration has delivered the most ambitious climate agenda ever and restored America's climate leadership around the world. The President underscored his Administration's impact in decreasing pollution and creating clean energy jobs while saving Americans money with energy tax subsidies.

The Forum, held against the backdrop of the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly and ahead of pivotal global milestones such as the G20 and COP29, focused on aligning governments and businesses around issues such as climate change, trade, and digitalization. The Bloomberg Global Business Forum has long been the leading public-private gathering alongside the United Nations General Assembly, bringing together CEOs and policymakers from around the world to discuss the importance of cooperation, diplomacy, and shared responsibility for economic prosperity and environmental stability.

President Joseph R. Biden's remarks emphasized his administration's historic work to make the U.S. more resilient to climate impacts and give young people more ways to secure climate and clean energy jobs.

"The climate is in crisis and one existential threat that faces all nations," said President Biden. "Mayor Bloomberg, you've convened leadership on the national and international level to lead the charge and change the mindset." Biden continued, "All of you in this audience, you have led building our economic capacity together. We have proven the strong middle class, thriving innovation and manufacturing is the key to winning climate here at home and abroad. Here are the key climate pages from the new economic playbook. We rejoined the Paris Agreement immediately after my predecessor walked away. We've gotten to work pulling private capital off the sidelines, getting the workers in the game. And once again, leading the world on climate, bringing jobs back home, manufacturing and technology we invented here in the United States decades ago, bringing it back for bringing back hope and pride in communities, opening shuttered factories, and zip codes too often left behind."

"The United States has reasserted America's position as a global leader in climate. We're leading an all-out effort to partner with nations to reduce global emissions to limit global warming to 1.5 °C," President Biden added. "America's climate leadership has encouraged American companies to invest in private capital for clean energy development and for low to middle income nations and so much more. I thank the business leaders who are here today for leading the way."

In his opening remarks, Michael R. Bloomberg, UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions and founder of Bloomberg L.P. and Bloomberg Philanthropies, remarked on challenges and opportunities facing global markets, and the importance of public-private partnerships. He said, "we created this forum to offer leaders a chance to have conversations across the private and public sectors, and to build new partnerships on some of the toughest challenges we face. Today, climate change is the special focus of our conversations, because no single issue presents bigger threats to peace and prosperity - or greater opportunities to spur economic growth. Bloomberg and Bloomberg Philanthropies are committed to doing our part, including by providing more of the data and transparency investors need, and by building more public-private partnerships that accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy."

Highlighting President Biden's climate leadership, Bloomberg added, "no president has done more to push our country forward on climate change - starting on Joe's first day in office, when he brought the U.S. back into the Paris Agreement. He has wisely put fighting climate change at the center of his work strengthening the economy - showing how the two go hand in hand. Bloomberg Philanthropies has been glad to collaborate closely with him and his team - and we're committed to doing everything we can to build on the climate progress he has led."

The Forum also featured panels and conversations with leaders from both business and government, including MP, Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Majid Al Suwaidi, CEO, ALTÉRRA, Ajay Banga,President of the World Bank, Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance and Co-Chair of Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, Jane Fonda, Actor and Activist, Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, Sherry Madera, CEO, CDP, Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet and Google, David Schwimmer, CEO, LSEG, Jean-Paul Servais, Chair of the Board, IOSCO, Shemara Wikramanayake, Managing Director & CEO, Macquarie Group, and Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered.

During a panel discussion on multiplying impact through partnerships, Ajay Banga, President of the World Bank, said, "Expanding the market requires expanding the vision of the institution, and the way we look at problems, from being only focused on poverty to also include the intertwined challenges of a livable planet - climate fragility, conflict, violence, pandemics, food insecurity. And thinking that you can segregate these into little buckets is a luxury we don't have. So, we need to work quicker and turn projects around faster. Last year at COP28, we announced that the World Bank and IMF put 45% of our money into climate finance by 2025. And we're actually going to reach very close to that number this year."

Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, said "We look at green growth opportunities for our members. As a financial institution, people look at us and say: You think climate is important? Put money where your mouth is. So, we created the Resilience and Sustainability Trust and injected $1 trillion in liquidity and reserves to help the economy overcome shocks. This is our collective power in action."

The Forum also highlighted several key announcements, including a joint announcementfrom CDP and the Net-Zero Public Data Utility (NZDPU) for plans to expand their existing partnership, which will enable the NZDPU to access core climate data disclosed through CDP. CDP and NZDPU will also work together to streamline reporting, avoid duplication, and increase access to consistent, comparable corporate climate data globally.

When discussing the power of climate reporting on a panel, Jean-Paul Servais, Chair of the Board, IOSCO, said, "We need more data, clean data, and data challenged by external auditors, because it's about trust."

In the same session about the new frontier of open data, Sherry Madera, CEO, CDP, said, "Being the foundational data partners for the NZDPU is an enormous point of pride for CDP because it is a drive toward efficiency. The only way that we are going to make progress, and make sure that we have more data to use, is to make sure that data is in a 'write once, and use it many' format."

The Global Capacity Building Coalition (GCBC) announcedthe beta version of a new Digital Platformdesigned to significantly increase the availability and effectiveness of climate finance capacity-building resources and programs for financial institutions, finance professionals, and others supporting the climate transition around the world, particularly in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). The Coalition also welcomed more than 30 new members, making the GCBC a leading global network for coordinating access to climate finance training and capacity-building programs.

In a session focused on mobilizing private investment globally, Majid Al Suwaidi, CEO, ALTÉRRA, said, "We've got the best and the brightest minds in the finance world thinking about how to invest in the Global South. We've created two new funds with TPG and Brookfield, and we have more to come with Blackrock focused on the Global South. They are committing their best talent to thinking about how we address the challenges of investing in the developing world…We don't need to invent new things. The solutions are there. We just need to invest in them."

Shemara Wikramanayake, Managing Director & CEO of Macquarie Group, joined him on that panel and said, "We need solutions that can be the default choice of rational actors, so you can thread the needle with driving uplifting living standards and economic development with climate-related solutions. We've cracked the code now on wind and solar, and they're pretty much the cheapest form of new build energy - but they're intermittent, so we need firming solutions." On the same panel Bill Winters, Group Chief Executive, Standard Chartered, added, "One of the thorniest issues is the decommissioning of coal fired power plants. How do we navigate? It's a lot of trial and error but it can't work without the public and private sectors working very closely together."

During the final panel on artificial intelligence, Ruth Porat, President & Chief Investment Officer, Alphabet & Google, said, "I think at the core of the approach from the White House, from the President and his team, has been a recognition about the strategic imperative due to the economic upside and the social benefit upside. It's about maximizing the upside, mitigating the downside, and bringing together experts from the private sector and the public sector to work together."

The 2024 Global Business Forum followed the third Earthshot Prize Innovation Summit,co-hosted by the Earthshot Prize and Bloomberg Philanthropies, and the Global Renewables Summit, co-hosted by Bloomberg Philanthropies.

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About Bloomberg Philanthropies:
Bloomberg Philanthropies invests in 700 cities and 150 countries around the world to ensure better, longer lives for the greatest number of people. The organization focuses on creating lasting change in five key areas: the Arts, Education, Environment, Government Innovation, and Public Health. Bloomberg Philanthropies encompasses all of Michael R. Bloomberg's giving, including his foundation, corporate, and personal philanthropy as well as Bloomberg Associates, a philanthropic consultancy that advises cities around the world. In 2023, Bloomberg Philanthropies distributed $3 billion. For more information, please visit bloomberg.org,sign up for our newsletter,or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, Facebook, and X.

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