One Earth at Climate Week 2025: Key takeaways and event highlights

Climate Week NYC 2025 carried both urgency and possibility. Leaders from around the world gathered to address the twin crises of climate change and biodiversity loss. For One Earth, it was an opportunity to amplify solutions that center on science, nature, and equity, and to highlight where climate finance must urgently shift.

Key takeaways

1. The fierce opportunity of now

We are living at a pivotal moment. Breakthroughs in renewable energy and mobility are real, yet many efforts still move in isolation. The week called for a whole-systems approach that aligns investment with what the planet actually needs, rather than what feels most familiar.

2. Climate finance: Progress, then priorities

Minding the Gaps, developed in partnership with Vibrant Data Labs, shows strong momentum in private climate finance across thousands of organizations. Even so, funding tends to flow toward a narrow set of well-known technologies. The path ahead is to broaden support across the full solutions set, including those that are essential but less visible.

3. Nature is still the missing pillar

Nature conservation remains under-resourced compared with its central role in climate stability and biodiversity. Indigenous stewardship continues to deliver powerful results for ecosystems and carbon storage, yet community-led work often lacks direct, durable support. Centering these leaders is key to lasting impact.

4. Agriculture: The gap beneath our feet

Food and land systems can be a profound climate solution when soils are healthy and working landscapes are restored. Practices such as agroforestry, biochar, crop rotation, and farm afforestation can rebuild biodiversity and resilience. Smallholder farmers, many of them women, are pivotal to this shift and deserve far greater access to capital and technical assistance.

5. The call to act collectively

A single theme echoed through the week: disconnection is the real barrier. Closing finance gaps will require closing human gaps by linking funders, policymakers, scientists, Indigenous leaders, farmers, and communities. When we act together, we can place capital where it will do the most good for people and our planet.

Event highlights

Project Dandelion & The Rockefeller Foundation at NYCW
On the eve of Climate Week, women leaders, artists, and advocates, including our Co-founder and Executive Director, Justin Winters, shared perspectives on how ancestral wisdom and feminist leadership can light the path forward in climate action.

Planetary Guardians: The New Curve
At this intimate convening of “investors for good,” Justin Winters presented Capital Mapping: Where the Money Is Going and Where It Is Not, emphasizing the need to diversify climate investments and elevate community-led solutions.

Chloe Capital: Launching Minding the Gaps
In partnership with Chloe Capital, One Earth co-hosted a high-touch networking event to unveil Minding the Gaps. Investors and philanthropists explored how to strategically scale funding across 75+ solution pathways.

Transformative Ventures Family Office Day
Justin Winters delivered a keynote on the climate finance landscape and joined a panel on bioregionalism, underscoring the importance of systems-level change.

Looking ahead

Climate Week 2025 made clear that we are no longer asking if we can solve the twin crises of climate and biodiversity. The real question is whether we will direct resources to the solutions that matter most, in time.

The path forward is clear: fund what is essential, not just what is familiar. Elevate Indigenous Peoples, women, and community leadership. And act collectively to close the climate finance gaps.

Together, we have the roadmap, the science, and the solutions. The next step is ours to take.