Hope And Momentum: Looking To A Green Horizon After Biden/Harris 2020
The world shifted a gear when Joe Biden and Kamala Harris emerged from the US Presidential election . A President-elect with a historic first as Vice-President - a clever woman with an international background who stands out in the usual line-up on political leadership. Her personal triumph has reaffirmed the American Dream of “anything is possible”.
Not long after the election results, as global congratulations rolled in from world leaders, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the “real prospect” of the US demonstrating global leadership on climate change.
For sentient global observers passionate about climate action and the need to pay attention to the fragility of our ecosystem, hope has sprung up with a leap. It was stirring when Joe Biden called climate change “an existential threat to humanity.” As President-elect, he has already pledged to rejoin the Paris Accord on the first day of his presidency, and has pledged a $2 trillion stimulus package aimed at a green recovery - his climate plan is loud and clear and accessible to all here.
If Mr Biden goes ahead with his net-zero emissions pledge by 2050 for the United States, this could shave 0.1 %C off global warming by 2100, according to the Climate Action Tracker. When coupled with China’s pledge to bring net emissions to net zero before 2060 and the EU, Japan and South Korea commitments to reach net zero by 2050, a “ tipping point” is being approached, it says, that puts the Paris Agreement’s 1.5 degree centigrade limit within reach.
At the heart of any progress towards real climate action lies the financial sector. For over a decade it has tried to shake off the last financial crisis and focus on regaining the trust of its customers and stakeholders, and both rebuild and rebrand reputations.
Today, with a year to go until COP26 takes place in Glasgow, the City of London Corporation and Green Finance Institute, supported by the World Economic Forum, is hosting a summit (November 9-11 and livestreamed) bringing together CEOs, policymakers and governments to focus on the practical solutions and financial innovation necessary to create a resilient and sustainable future for the global economy. The Green Horizon Summit, an international event, will tackle many of the critical areas where finance needs to grow - the details on the summit and livestream links are here.
“Achieving the net zero will require a whole economy transition, involving every company, bank, insurer and investor, and creating the greatest commercial opportunity of our time” said Mark Carney, the UK Prime Minister’s Finance Adviser for COP26 and UN Special Envoy for Climate Action. At the summit he will set out the progress the financial sector is making to help solve the climate crisis and what needs to happen on the road to COP26.
Private finance “will play a critical role in funding the initiatives and innovations of the private sector and helping companies realign their business models for net zero” said Mr Carney. “Our priority for COP26 is to build this market in the transition to the pillars of comprehensive climate reporting, better climate risk management and optimisation of returns.”
The recent third status report from the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) shows progress in this direction and highlights the need for greater climate-related disclosures and transparency.
“Investors are increasingly demanding climate-related disclosures from the companies they invest in, and this demand is driving global momentum around the TCFD recommendations across financial and non-financial sectors” said Mary Schapiro, Head of the TCFD Secretariat and Vice Chair for Global Public Policy at Bloomberg LP.
Last week Bloomberg hosted a virtual event in partnership with Climate Finance Week Ireland 2020 for a high-level dialogue on how the TCFD is raising a new kind of ambition- climate ambition amongst the players in the financial market. As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to take its grim toll of human life across the globe, this is a worthy ambition of reinvention for a finance sector that needs urgently to reconnect with its stakeholders, a growing number of whom are millennials. If we can redefine ambition - and we always can do that - we can redefine leadership to insist on sustainability.
Stay tuned for further news here for some of the best thinking and events around sustainability, and all things #ESG - a subject I have been passionate about for much of the last decade. And remember the words of the poet W.H.Auden to stay inspired:
“How should we like it were stars to burn with a passion for us we could not return?” (The More Loving One, W.H.Auden) read by the author here.
