Pam Cheng, executive vice president and chief sustainability officer of biopharmaceutical company AstraZeneca, was not sure what Climate Week 2025 would look like.
“I was a bit nervous about the energy level, the momentum we’ve built, what would it be like and feel like this week. And it’s super cool to see the momentum, the energy completely alive,” she said. “But we cannot ignore the fact that there’s a lot of challenges involved today, and it takes a lot of resilience.”
Cheng’s comments on a panel at the TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum on September 24 during New York City’s Climate Week came at a tumultuous moment in the climate movement. President Donald Trump’s climate change denialism earlier in the week during an address at the U.N. General Assembly and his Administration’s rolling back of climate regulations throughout his first nine months in office formed a heavy backdrop for the discussions of the night.
Read More: Here Are All of Trump’s Major Moves to Dismantle Climate Action
Cheng referenced the general atmosphere around climate action under Trump, while others at the event called out the President’s words at the U.N. and his actions in office specifically, including Andrew Forrest, founder and executive chairman of Fortescue. (The event was sponsored by AstraZeneca and Fortescue.)
“The greatest heap of rubbish I’ve heard for all time is some society leader saying global warming was the greatest con of all time. I find that gobsmackingly illogical,” Forrest said during a panel about the future of clean energy and power. He invited Trump to see the communities and habitats in the world that climate change is impacting—including barrier reefs and indigenous communities living in the Pacific.
“I’ve watched them move their villages back farther and farther and farther as the tides and storms come up higher and higher and take out their houses, take out their schools,” he said. “Mr. President, you’ve got to tell the truth: global warming is absolutely real.”
Marine biologist Sylvia Earle said that there is “no excuse” for climate change denialism. “If we are to survive as a species, to create an enduring future for the planet, the time is now to act,” she said.
And though the U.S. might be facing climate rollbacks, many of the night’s speakers made it clear that the rest of the world is not stopping progress. Eighty-five percent of countries across the globe support a transition to clean energy, and a number of developing countries are using solar power to drive industrialization and growth.
“If there’s one hoax, there’s one con, it’s that we in the global south are not acting on climate change because the United States told us to,” said Arunabha Ghosh, CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water. “We’re acting on climate change because it makes sense for us, because we are vulnerable, but we also have an agency to combat this crisis.”
The TIME100 Climate Leadership Forum was presented by AstraZeneca, Fortescue, and Official Timepiece Rolex.