The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (“COP26”) in Glasgow on 1 - 12 November 2021.
The UK will host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (“COP26”) in Glasgow on 1 - 12 November 2021. Its overall objectives are to:
The objectives require all businesses and organisations to change their business models to commit to achieving the climate goals. These goals require all forms of finance, but the role of private finance is key to expediting the implementation of climate policy, so that capital can be used to (1) manage climate risks as well as (2) build upon climate opportunities as and when they arise. Since retiring as the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney has now specialised in climate finance. As UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, he has described these sorts of actions as a way of avoiding a climate “Minsky moment”, a term used to describe a sudden collapse in confidence which precipitates a financial crash.
Since the Paris Agreement was signed in 2015, it is reported that banks have continued to invest $2.2 trillion into the fossil fuel industry. Reconstructing a finance system that will work for the long-term is essential to prevent future financial crises. Whilst the carbon offset market is only worth $300 million a year, both banks and high profile individuals have argued that this figure could be in the hundreds of billions a year in the future.
The objective for the private finance work for COP26 is to “ensure that every professional financial decision takes climate change into account”. The COP26 Private Finance Hub will work with the private sector and other stakeholders to develop the following 4 key areas, which span reporting, risk management, returns and mobilisation.
COP26 Private Finance Hub’s goals for reporting are:
In the past few years, the TCFD has developed a framework to help private finance companies, as well as other organisations, more effectively disclose climate-related risks and opportunities through their existing reporting processes. As of last year, more than 370 investors with around $35 trillion in assets have now committed to engage with the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters to strengthen their climate-related disclosures by implementing the TCFD recommendations.
To achieve the aims, firms must:
“ensuring that the financial sector can measure and manage climate-related financial risks.”
COP26 Private Finance Hub’s goals for risk management are:
Climate risks, both physical and transitional, make it challenging for private finance firms to assess climate risks because it relies upon estimates for what a company’s future emissions are as well as its current emissions, and the knock-on effects that those might be. A more detailed analysis of insurers’ approaches to such risks and the regulatory requirements can be found in our February article.
There has been much improvement on risk management in recent years, with the Network of Central Banks and Supervisors for Greening the Financial System (“NGFS”) now comprising 83 members, including the US Federal Reserve System as of December 2020. Together with the 13 observers, these members represent around 75% of global greenhouse emissions and two thirds of global systemically important insurers; this provides hope for a more consistent approach to stress testing in the future.
“helping investors identify the opportunities in the transition to net zero and report how their own portfolios are aligned for the transition”.
As well as managing risk, it will also be important for investors to understand and evaluate opportunities which could be realised through successful transition.
COP26 Private Finance Hub’s goals for returns are:
To achieve these aims, firms will need to put in place, inter alia:
“increasing private financial flows to emerging and developing economies, by connecting available capital with investable projects and encouraging new market structures”
COP26 Private Finance Hub’s goals for mobilisation are:
To carry out these goals, firms will need to ensure that they have, inter alia:
The goals of COP26 are intrinsically linked to private finance’s taking responsibility for its role to play in improving our environment.
First published by Thomson Reuters Regulatory Intelligence on 31st March 2021.
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