S&P Global Sustainability Quarterly Third-Quarter 2025 Special Edition

Welcome to the Third-Quarter 2025 Special Edition of the S&P Global Sustainability Quarterly, the flagship research journal from S&P Global. The research that follows shines new light on the future of the energy transition and climate action — pivotal topics during a busy season of sustainability events, starting with Climate Week NYC.  

We kick off with new energy and climate scenarios from S&P Global that capture energy market risks and reimagine plausible pathways to the future. The revised base case view describes a world attempting to manage the instability and uncertainty of the first half of the 2020s; it aims to strike a balance between conclusively pivoting the global energy system away from fossil fuels and still meeting the growing needs of developed and emerging economies.  

Building on these scenarios, a new probabilistic analysis by S&P Global explores why the world should plan for 2.3 degrees C of warming. The research aims to eliminate some of the uncertainty about the pace of climate change to support adaptation and resilience investment decisions.   

To understand what those adaptation and resilience efforts look like in practice, we turn to a critical enabler of economic growth, trade and connectivity: airports. Major hub airports are highly exposed to climate hazards in many regions, which can have wide-ranging business impacts, research from S&P Global finds. On the positive side, we find adaptation and resilience efforts are more advanced for airports compared to many transportation infrastructure peers. 

We explore the physical risks of climate change through the lens of data centers: Data centers are being built out rapidly to meet growing AI demands, and our research examines the implications for water stress around the globe. 

We also examine the social side of the energy transition. The race is on for critical minerals needed to power low-carbon energy technologies, and our research explores how mining companies are managing relationships with the communities most directly impacted by their activities. This is especially pressing since 43% of mines for transition minerals sit on or near officially recognized Indigenous or local community lands. Without careful management, disputes with communities can lead to financial impacts for mining companies and undermine energy transition ambitions. 

Finally, we look ahead to COP30, the UN Climate Change conference that Brazil will host in November, putting Latin America in the spotlight. We explore the landscape for sustainable finance in the region, where competing priorities such as economic growth, the just energy transition and nature preservation intersect. 

We hope the following research will jumpstart productive, solutions-oriented conversations during Climate Week NYC and beyond.