Opening plenary of the

US Climate Action Summit

Delivering the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law

The $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) is the largest investment in the US clean economy. What states and businesses do next will determine the future success of US climate action.

But does the BIL and federal financing have the potential to reshape the US clean economy? What other support do states and businesses - who have been leading on climate action - need to raise their climate agendas and accelerate their plans?

Discussion topics:

What are the most lasting impacts that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) can have on climate action?
How can federal, state and business collaboration build the foundations of an inclusive, clean economy while ensuring BIL spending is used to drive significant greenhouse gas reductions?
Does the BIL lay the foundations for US decarbonization and what more will be required?

Want to see how the day unfolded? You can watch the opening plenary below, or click to watch the closing plenary:

To begin our day, our CEO Helen Clarkson and North America Executive Director Angela Barranco kicked off the US Climate Action Summit, setting the scene for what's next for US climate action.

Next, Angela Barranco was joined by White House National Climate Advisor Gina McCarthy for a conversation on 'the state of the climate'. Gina gave a rousing talk to begin the day and get the audience fired up on driving climate action in the US, summarised perfectly in her closing line, "There’s one path for all of us and it’s called clean energy!”

Watch the full conversation:

Laura Corb, Senior Partner McKinsey Sustainability, who we were pleased to have as our Headline Partner for the event, discussed the topic 'solving the net zero equation: How we’ll get there and what today’s leaders need to know.'

Watch it now:

Our panel for the opening plenary saw us tackle the main discussion point for the session: Delivering the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and beyond. We were joined by four experts on the US climate space from across different sectors:

Paula Glover, President, Alliance to Save Energy
Andrew Wishnia, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Climate Policy, U.S. Department of Transport
Ben Wilson, Chief Strategy and External Affairs Officer, National Grid US
Christine Harada, Executive Director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council

To finish the opening plenary, North America Executive Director gave a great summary of the discussions held throughout the day from the various climate leaders who joined us. See her closing remarks below:

This gathering built on the success of President Biden's 2021 Leader's Summit to boost state climate strategies and business action.

We presented two action-packed plenary sessions across the day, where we heard from influential guest speakers on how to deliver climate action, fast. Check out how the closing plenary unfolded.