- In today’s CEO Daily: Diane Brady on CEOs, Trump, and climate change.
- The big story: Kimmel returns, and Trump makes new legal threats against ABC.
- The markets: Mostly down.
- Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.
Good morning. President Trump yesterday told the UN General Assembly that climate change is “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.”
CEOs aren’t buying it. During a podcast interview in our office yesterday, Patagonia’s Ryan Gellert compared the president’s comments to gravity-deniers who walk out of a third-floor window and fall to the ground. It doesn’t matter what you believe, he said. The science is still the same.
Dave Regnery of Trane Technologies is emblematic of the CEOs I’ve met here at Climate Week NYC, the world’s largest climate gathering outside COP. He has put sustainability at the core of the $20 billion-a-year provider of heating, ventilation, air conditioning, and refrigeration systems. The company is on track to cut a gigaton of carbon emissions from its customers’ footprint by 2030, launching 190 new products and solutions in the last year alone, using tech to optimize electricity usage in buildings. And Regnery has done that while delivering double-digit annual revenue growth and more than quadrupling the stock price since Trane emerged from Ingersoll Rand in March 2020. As he said during a fireside chat at Fortune’s annual Climate Week dinner last night, sponsored by Deloitte: “We need to lead with the fact that just because it’s sustainable doesn’t mean it costs more.”
The business case for sustainability is compelling. Global investments in renewable energy in the first half of 2025 rose 10% over this time last year, according to Zero Carbon Analytics. As Jesper Brodin, CEO of IKEA’s main operator Ingka Group, told me on stage during Deloitte’s Horizons event earlier this week, leaders have to take action because “climate change is here.”
The U.S. policy environment doesn’t help. But economist Spencer Glendon points out in his Fall Equinox newsletter, that “what’s demotivating is anxiety: a vague sense that the future is bad.” With more companies seeing sustainability as a path to profitability, the conversations in New York this week are about how to get things done. For more inspiration, check out the 2025 Fortune Change the World list that’s out this morning, highlighting the companies that are doing well by doing good for the world. Costco, Deloitte, and Mastercard made the list—see the rest here.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
