If you’ve been feeling the heat recently, you’re not the only one…
According to the EU’s Copernicus climate monitoring service, June 2026 was the hottest June on record for western Europe, and the second warmest globally.
Intense heatwaves like this are a sign that our climate is changing, but also a reminder that sustainability research needs to consider how net-zero social equity issues are factored into a transitioning world.
For example, the International Labour Organization argues that heat stress is likely to be among the most serious economic consequences of climate change, with the percentage of working hours lost to it set to exceed 2% by 2030.
As temperatures rise, the sectors and locations where people work will become increasingly important, affecting economic agendas, climate migration, and the pace of transition.
However, while people are so often recipients of climate impacts, they’re also the innovators, entrepreneurs and funders behind net-zero solutions.
Even as climate impacts intensify, people will always be there, taking actions to increase resilience over time. It’s their innovation, leadership and allocation of capital that will bend the global emissions curve and accelerate the net zero transition.
We explored why people are key to delivering net-zero in our ‘People Power’ Net-Zero Navigator from May 2025. If you’re a client of HSBC Global Investment Research, you can read the report from the link in the comments.
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