AIAC SUPPORTS CLIMATE WEEK AT THE EXPLORERS CLUB

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NEW YORK, NY - September 13, 2026 - American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) announced its support of Climate Week 2026 at The Explorers Club, a five-day program of scientific presentations, film screenings, symposia, and art installations to be held at the Club's landmark headquarters at 46 East 70th Street from Monday, September 21 through Friday, September 25, 2026.

Climate Week at The Explorers Club convenes alongside the High-Level Week of the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly. AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie, Trustee and Poet Laureate of the Explorers Club shall join officers of the club in greeting visiting dignataries and conducting private tours of the Explorers Club. He shall attend receptions at the United Nations and shall host a reception and dinner on Wednesday night at the Harmonie Club for the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs - Sustainable Investment Research Initiative's Leadership Council. On Thursday night, he shall host a dinner for the Trustees, Advisors, and Friends of the SeaBed Curtain Project.

AIAC, together with its affiliates Champlain Cable, SuperAlloy Manufacturing Solutions, Bradford Space, and Canadian Kraft Paper Industries, are Partners of Climate Week 2026, joining Rolex, XPRIZE, and Christie's. AIAC and its affiliates are also Partners of The Explorers Club, World Oceans Week, and the Explorers Club Annual Dinner. The World Economic Forum and Embassy of France will take part in the programs.

Climate Week is chaired by Dr. Alexander More, Director of The Explorers Club. Dr. More is Associate Professor of Environmental Health at the University of Massachusetts Boston and Group Leader for Climate and Health at Harvard University's Initiative for the Science of the Human Past. Barbara Doran, President of The Explorers Club shall welcome attendees.

THE 2026 PROGRAM

Each day of Climate Week pairs a 5:00 PM session with a 7:00 PM session, bringing together field scientists, conservationists, technologists, artists, and explorers. The week is preceded on the evening of Sunday, September 20 by The Future of our Blue Planet, a public discussion hosted at the Club by the World Economic Forum's Friends of Ocean Action, built around a series of fast-paced fireside conversations on the state of the ocean.

Monday, September 21

5:00 PM - Mission Neptune, with the Embassy of France. Mission Neptune and The Explorers Club New York co-host their first official event together, marking the start of a new partnership dedicated to advancing ocean exploration, science, and public engagement. The evening takes up the Polar Oceans, from the rapidly changing Arctic to the fragile ecosystems of Antarctica, and the governance decisions that the open scientific questions now demand. Speakers include Prof. Antje Boetius, President and CEO of MBARI; Dr. François Houllier, President and CEO of the Institut Français de Recherche pour l'Exploitation de la Mer (Ifremer); Dr. Guillaume Liniger, post-doctoral researcher at MBARI and Neptune Fellow on Polar Oceans; Romain Troublé, Executive Director of the Tara Ocean Foundation, joining live at sea from Tara Polaris I with a member of his team; and Dr. Alexander More.

7:00 PM - To Explore is to Lead: More Leadership Insights from the Climate Vanguard. Moderated by Mathias Wikström, CEO and Founder of Doconomy, with Michael Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor and Director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania; Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research; Daniel C. Esty, Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at the Yale School of the Environment; Gail Gallie, Founder of the NAT; Johanna Fager, Head of Group Sustainability at Swedbank; and Karen Pflug, Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA. Barbara Doran and Dr. Alexander More take part.

Tuesday, September 22

5:00 PM - Plant Life: a film screening and conversation on the future of climate-resilient agriculture. Dr. Joanne Chory spent decades uncovering how plants grow, sense, and respond to the world, and devoted her final years to engineering plants that could help heal a warming planet. She died in 2024. A co-production of Speculative Films and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios, the film follows a scientist whose life's work converged into a race against time. The Salk Institute's Harnessing Plants Initiative carries that work forward, developing crops that feed a growing population, draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, and withstand an increasingly unpredictable climate. A Q&A follows with directors Josh Izenberg and Brett Marty and Salk scientists Wolfgang Busch and Lena Mueller, who will report on research completed since filming ended.

7:00 PM - Your Climate Story is Already Here: The Case for Feeling It, with AOA. The Club hosts AOA, an immersive experience design firm founded by former Walt Disney Imagineers, for an evening on the gap between climate knowledge and climate feeling. Structured as an experiential event, it features Didi Bethurum, Jackie Wolford, and Tom Acomb, and includes a live diagnostic and case studies in scientific and cultural legacy.

Wednesday, September 23

5:00 PM - The Future Begins in Fields: Why Cotton Matters More than Ever, with Cotton USA, Sierra Farming, Gap Inc., and Avalo. Shifting weather patterns, geopolitical uncertainty, and changing supply chains are reshaping the cotton industry, and resilience will require cooperation across the whole value chain. Casey England, a cotton farmer; Agata Smeets, Head of Environmental and Product Sustainability at Gap Inc.; and agricultural innovator Dr. Mariano Alvarez discuss farming, innovation, and sourcing, moderated by Liz Hershfield, Executive Director at COTTON USA and the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol.

7:00 PM - The Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize. The Wilkes Center for Climate Science and Policy at the University of Utah and XPRIZE announce the winner of the $250,000 Wilkes Climate Innovation Prize. XPRIZE then hosts a conversation with leaders behind transformative climate prizes, including the winner of the $100 million XPRIZE Carbon Removal, on how prize competitions move breakthrough technologies from idea to deployment.

Thursday, September 24

5:00 PM - Scientific Tourism: Turning Exploration into Climate Action, with ProColombia. What if tourism did more than minimize its footprint, and actively financed science, strengthened conservation, and created opportunity for local communities? Drawing on Colombia, one of the most biodiverse countries on earth, as a living laboratory, the session examines how expeditions and tourism can be integrated through governance, cross-sector partnership, community participation, and responsible destination development, and what it would take to scale the model.

7:00 PM - A Plan B for the Planet? Environmental Observations and Technologies for the Future. The evening opens with remarks by three Trustees of The Explorers Club - Frederik Paulsen, Chairman Emeritus of Ferring Pharmaceuticals; Mikkel Vestergaard, Founder and CEO of Sceye; and L. M. Levie, Chairman of AIAC - and turns on how the observations we make shape decisions in boardrooms, family offices, institutions, and governments, how security and economic risk should be rethought in a changing world, and whether the technologies exist to prevent planetary-scale catastrophe. They are joined by Dr. Julie Pullen, independent Earth system scientist and technologist; Vidar Helgesen, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO and Former Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation; and Marianne Hagen, Co-Lead of the Seabed Curtain Project and former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway. Diane Brady, Executive Editorial Director of Fortune, moderates.

Friday, September 25

1:30 PM - Climate Week NGEN Symposium. Presentations curated by the Club's NGEN Committee, moderated by Dr. Alexander More, featuring Anthony Halcyon on global water security, Alex Roessner on what it takes to measure a living planet, Jason Jaacks on saving the saltmarsh sparrow, Laura Stukonytė on grey seals in a changing Baltic, Sian Sheilds on tourism, climate, and the North, W. Scott Telford IV on local and national networks against microplastics, and Malaika Vaz on storytelling that balances people, planet, and profit.

5:00 PM - The American West: The Future of Public Lands - and the Wildlife That Depend on Them. Roughly half the land area of the twelve Western states is federally owned, but public land is not the same as protected land, and these landscapes are asked to serve very different purposes. Investigative journalist Cayte Bosler leads a conversation with Raj Reddy, Director of the Animal Law Program at Lewis & Clark Law School; Christopher Keyes, Founder and Executive Director of RE:PUBLIC; and Christopher Sichko, economist, environmental researcher, and wildlife photographer.

7:00 PM - Art and Environmental Impact, with Christie's. A conversation with Christie's, ClientEarth, Private Square, and Endangered Rainforest Rescue on how art can mobilize resources, catalyze policy change, and open new pathways to impact. Featuring Natalie Stoneham, CEO of Private Square and Advisor to The King's Trust; Danielle Lackey, Executive Director of ClientEarth Americas; Alexandra Climent, Founder of Endangered Rainforest Rescue; and Caroline Maxwell of Christie's.

EXHIBITIONS AND INSTALLATIONS

Throughout the week, the Club's headquarters will host a series of climate-themed displays. Three paintings from Susan Hoffman Fishman's series The Tale of Lost Waters - composed of paint, photographs, maps, and recycled fragments - document diminishing water sources around the world. The members lounge will feature artwork and poetry drawn from the 2025 Ocean Awareness Contest of Bow Seat: Creative Action for Conservation, the largest environmental program for the creative arts in the world. On the terrace, Sari Nordman has installed two woven fiber works made from discarded plastic, engaging directly with the material at the center of the crisis they address. Additional displays come from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and from rainforest conservationist and artist Alexandra Climent.

All Climate Week sessions will be live-streamed at no charge on The Explorers Club's YouTube and Facebook channels. Tickets to attend in person are available through the Club's online store.

STATEMENT OF AIAC CHAIRMAN L. M. LEVIE

L. M. Levie, AIAC Chairman, Member of the Board of Trustees of The Explorers Club, its Poet Laureate, a Member of its Annual Dinner Committee, and Chairman of the Seabed Curtain Project, will host the Thursday, September 24 program, reception, and dinner. He issued the following statement:

"There is a habit of mind peculiar to explorers: they go and see for themselves. For more than a century this Club has sent men and women to the ice, the canopy, the trench, and the crater - not to confirm what was already believed, but to find out what was true. That habit is now among the most valuable instruments we possess. The climate question will not be settled by assertion. It will be settled by measurement, and measurement requires someone willing to travel to the place where the measuring must be done."

"AIAC is proud to stand with this Club, and I will put our reason plainly. We are a manufacturing company. We steward twenty-two million acres of Canadian forest. We make the undersea cables that carry the ocean's evidence to the surface, the components that lift instruments into orbit, and the wire that moves a city's cars, trucks, and trains. Industry is not a spectator to this problem. Industry is where a great deal of the answer will have to be engineered, built, and paid for. A company that draws its living from the earth owes the earth its competence."

"On Thursday evening I will host a conversation with Frederik Paulsen, Mikkel Vestergaard, Julie Pullen, Vidar Helgesen, and Marianne Hagen, moderated by my dear friend, Diane Brady. This discussion carries a title that is a real question and not a rhetorical one: is there a Plan B for the planet? I am certain it will not be found by those who have decided in advance that nothing can be done, nor by those who assume that someone else is already doing it. It will be found by bold explorers."

"We will not see the end of this work. Neither did the men and women whose names are carved into the walls of this noble edifice. They went out regardless, and they wrote down what they saw, and we are living today on the strength of it. Let us be worth as much to those who come after us. I offer my heartfelt thanks to Dr. Alexander More, who chairs Climate Week; to Barbara Doran, who leads this Club; and to every scientist, artist, student, and explorer who will fill 46 East 70th Street next week."

ABOUT CLIMATE WEEK AT THE EXPLORERS CLUB

Climate Week at The Explorers Club is an annual program of public talks, screenings, symposia, and exhibitions convened at the Club's New York headquarters. Proceeds support the Club's climate-focused educational programming, outreach, and grants for climate science and exploration worldwide.

For further information, see: https://www.explorers.org/special-events/climate-week-2026/

ABOUT AMERICAN INDUSTRIAL ACQUISITION CORPORATION

American Industrial Acquisition Corporation (AIAC) is a diversified industrial group with manufacturing, distribution, and administrative sites in 24 countries across North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia-New Zealand. AIAC has acquired and grown non-core subsidiaries and divisions of Boeing, Siemens, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Johnson Controls, Merck, Pfizer, Astellas, Visteon, Carlyle, KKR, Ahlstrom, Novelis, Tolko, Groupe Suez, Groupe Rexel, and many other leading multinational corporations.

AIAC companies serve companies and governmental entities worldwide in all major sectors, including aviation, space, defense, automotive, truck, rail, marine, petrochemical, solar, nuclear, civil engineering, logistics, agriculture, infrastructure, commercial construction, mining, dredging, disaster relief, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals. AIAC companies are also exclusive, authorized distributors of leading branded industrial products, and serve as critical suppliers for the construction of major airports, schools, hospitals, performing arts and sports centers, offices, and hotels throughout Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. AIAC is a major manufacturer of greenhouse materials globally and of building, street, and highway signage in Europe, and a distributor of electrical products throughout France.

AIAC companies actively support exploration into outer space, manufacturing critical components for launching and propelling spacecraft and satellites. AIAC customers in this sector include NASA, SpaceX, the European Space Agency, Blue Origin, and Boeing. AIAC companies also lead in the design and manufacture of undersea umbilical cables for worldwide oceanographic research.

Of note, AIAC purchased Boeing Canada in 2005 and has produced over 10,000 unique components for every Boeing jet plane ever since, reliably serving Boeing from manufacturing facilities in North America. A leader in ultra-high precision jet engine component manufacturing, AIAC companies produce 2,200 fan blades for each jet engine produced by GE, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls Royce, and Honeywell.

AIAC companies produce the critical automotive wire and cable for GM, Ford, Chrysler-Fiat, Tesla, Toyota, and Nissan, and for the New York and Atlanta subways. In connection with its kraft paper manufacturing interests in Canada and the United States, AIAC sustainably manages 22 million acres of Manitoba, Canada forestland, an area equivalent in size to the nation of Hungary. AIAC affiliate Metallwarenfabrik Gemmingen GmbH, located in Germany, designs, manufactures, and distributes high performance, emergency portable power generators used in global conflict zones and during major natural disasters.

For further information, see: https://www.aiac.com

ABOUT AIAC PHILANTHROPIES

AIAC and the AIAC Foundation support a wide range of nonprofit, nonsectarian, bipartisan organizations which promote international conflict resolution, disaster relief, economic development, environmental sustainability, exploration, and the performing arts. The exploration-focused nonprofit organizations they actively support include The Explorers Club, the National Geographic Society, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Mission Blue, the Jane Goodall Institute, the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the National Space Society, and the United States Space Foundation.

AIAC and its affiliates Bradford Space, Canadian Kraft Paper Industries, SuperAlloy Manufacturing Solutions, and Champlain Cable are Partners of The Explorers Club and of Climate Week, and Sponsors of Oceans Week.

AIAC Chairman L. M. Levie is a Member of the Board of Trustees of The Explorers Club, its Poet Laureate, and a Member of its Annual Dinner Committee. L. M. Levie also serves as Trustee of the Theodore Roosevelt Association, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, Zoological Society of London, and the Asia Society.

For further information, see: https://www.aiac.com | aiac.com/our-values

ABOUT THE EXPLORERS CLUB

The Explorers Club is an American-based, international, multidisciplinary professional society with the mission of promoting and supporting scientific exploration and field study on land, sea, and in outer space. The club was founded in New York City in 1904 and has served as a meeting point for explorers and scientists worldwide. Members of the club have been the first to explore the North Pole, the South Pole, Mount Everest, and the Mariana Trench, and to walk on the Moon. The club's notable current members and honorees include Buzz Aldrin, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Prince Albert II of Monaco, Princess Reema Bandar Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia, Grand Duke Guillaume V of Luxembourg, Sir Richard Branson, Ken Griffin, James Cameron, Ray Dalio, and Wendy Schmidt.

In years past, prominent members have included Sir Ernest Shackleton, President Theodore Roosevelt, Sir Edmund Hillary, Amelia Earhart, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Jim Lovell, Thor Heyerdahl, Walter Cronkite, Prince Philip - Duke of Edinburgh, and Jane Goodall. The Explorers Club's historic clubhouse, at 46 East 70th Street in New York City, is a museum and monument to the "Famous Firsts," the greatest explorers and expeditions of all time.

For further information, see: https://www.explorers.org

Media Contact

Isabel Carro-Toro, Vice President
American Industrial Acquisition Corporation
+34 689 295 827 (Spain)
+1 787 244 3175 (USA)

[email protected]

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