Rainn Wilson has “changed” his name and is inviting others to do the same.
“The Office” actor debuted “Rainnfall Heat Wave Rising Sea Levels Wilson” on social media Thursday as a way to raise awareness about the climate control crisis.
Wilson encouraged his followers to visit environmental advocacy group Arctic Basecamp’s “Arctic Name Changer” to get their own names to be used on their social media profiles in the hopes of capturing the attention of the world leaders assembling in Egypt for the COP27 international climate change conference.
“And if enough of us do this, then maybe @cop27_egypt will be where our world leaders sit up and notice Arctic risks and introduce a solution,” he tweeted. “Make Arctic Name Changer a Game Changer!”
The burning of fossil fuels continues to wreak havoc on Earth’s stability. A group of more than 100 scientists has determined that 2022 will be a “record year” for carbon emissions — a finding that comes as world leaders gather in Egypt at COP27 to discuss the urgency in minimizing global warming to prevent the worst outcomes of climate change.
Carbon dioxide is the primary greenhouse gas created by human activities, making its emissions a major contributor to global warming. The burning of fossil fuels overwhelmingly contributes to its increased concentrations, and international agencies and scientists have urged that such activities must be significantly reduced — and fast — to prevent excessive warming.
This report shows that such prompts have been unsuccessful.
Global carbon dioxide emissions dropped at the onset of the pandemic in 2020, but rebounded in 2021. This year, they are expected to increase another 1% to reach a level above those seen in 2019, making 2022 a “new record year” for fossil CO2 emissions. Emissions specifically from coal, oil and gas are expected to be above levels seen in 2021.
Those increased emissions have raised the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. This year, the concentration shows an average of 417.2 parts per million (ppm), an increase from last year’s record high. The last time carbon concentrations in the atmosphere have been this high was more than 3 million years ago.
“This represents an increase in atmospheric CO2 of around 51%, relative to pre-industrial levels,” climate scientist Zeke Hausfather said.
Some regions have seen decreases in their emissions – China by 0.9% and the European Union by 0.8% – but many others are seeing significant increases. The U.S., which has long been the world’s top carbon emitter, saw its emissions increase by 1.5% this year. India, ranked No. 7 for carbon emissions, according to Carbon Brief, saw an increase of 6%.
The planet relies on land and ocean carbon sinks to help offset such concentrations. The “sinks” are things like plants, the ocean and soil, that absorb more carbon than they release. But Hausfather explained that they “cannot expand forever” and that they are expected to weaken over time as the impacts of climate change worsen.
Global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels hit a record high in 2022.
Oceans, which absorb about half of carbon dioxide emissions, have had their ability to absorb CO2 reduced by about 4%, Hausfather said.
“If emissions continue to increase, the portion of global emissions remaining in the atmosphere – that is, the airborne fraction – will grow, making the amount of climate change the world experiences worse than it otherwise would be,” he said.
Matt Jones, one of the study’s authors, said that the findings do, however, offer “some hope” – the total amount of human emissions seems to be “leveling off.”
Land-use change emissions, primarily from deforestation, are projected to be about 10 times less than fossil fuel emissions in 2022, but Jones said that estimation comes with “the highest uncertainty,” among researchers’ other findings.
Some good news. (Maybe.)
There are promising signs of a decline in global #land use change #emissions.
Although these estimates come with the highest uncertainty of any component of the global carbon budget. pic.twitter.com/APcCILWUEY
All sources considered, 2022 emissions remain high “but approximately flat since 2015,” researchers said in a presentation, “but this trend is uncertain.”
And at current rates, the world is headed down a path to catastrophe. The U.N. has warned that minimizing global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial times seems to be no longer possible, and this report highlights its unlikelihood. Researchers said that to make that happen, no more than 380 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide – about 9 years of emissions based on 2022 numbers – can be released in the years to come.
Sharply decreasing carbon emissions has been a major goal of scientists and international agencies. One of the main aspects of the Paris Climate Agreement calls for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 to reduce warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
But to make that happen, the world would have to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 1.4 billion tonnes per year, scientists of this report found. That would be the equivalent of almost completely cutting out cement production in 2021, which produced 1.67 billion tonnes of carbon emissions.
With the 2022 Global Carbon Budget out today, here’s lead researcher @PFriedling with a simple message to world leaders at #COP27
“We have to reduce…greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible,” Pierre Friedlingstein, the study’s lead author said. “…This decade through the 2030s is a time when we really have to show action and global emissions going down as quickly as possible. There’s no time to wait.”
President Joe Biden addressed the U.N. climate summit Friday with his Democratic party having survived a projected Republican “red wave” in the midterm elections — and in doing so protecting at least the bulk of a landmark climate-change spending law he signed this year.
Biden addressed the U.N.’s Conference of the Parties (COP27) climate summit in Egypt on his way to Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of 20 meeting and a planned sit-down with China’s Xi Jinping.
In August, Biden signed the largest U.S. investment in fighting climate change ever, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). That puts him on stronger footing on the global stage than at last year’s COP26 gathering in Scotland, when American commitments to carbon reduction weren’t backed by law.
Four themes color Biden’s trip: Russia’s war in Ukraine, escalating trade and security tensions with China, the potential for a global recession in the coming months and the existential problem of climate change.
“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security and the very life of the planet,” Biden said in his address to the summit.
Biden apologized to the group for the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord — and its global-warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius (equivalent to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — which the country did briefly under President Donald Trump. In a remark that garnered speech-pausing applause from the audience, Biden said the U.S. commitment to the global effort, struck in Paris in 2015 and reaffirmed each year, is apparent in the climate-focused IRA.
Biden also highlighted a proposal that would require large federal contractors to develop carbon-reduction targets and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, by which the administration hopes to use the federal government’s purchasing power to slow the impacts on climate from the private sector and bolster vulnerable supply chains.
“As the world’s largest customer, with more than $650 billion in spending last year, the United States government is putting our money where our mouth is to strengthen accountability for climate risk and resilience,” he said.
Talks with China still loom
Biden’s other task is to convince the summit participants of the U.S. commitment to engage with China, not only on trade and security matters, but also as part of an alliance between the world’s two top polluters to deliver on their carbon-reduction plans and show measurable progress. The U.S. has said it can reach net-zero emissions by 2050; China’s target date is 2060. Both countries have said they can show progress as soon as 2030, but some observers say time may be running out to hit that marker.
At the start of the COP27 summit, U.N. chief Antonio Guterres called for a historic agreement — or “climate solidarity pact” — between developed and emerging economies. The flagship climate conference runs Nov. 6-18.
The U.S. and China, the world’s two largest economies and top greenhouse-gas emitters, “have a particular responsibility to join efforts to make this pact a reality,” Guterres said earlier this week.
A domestic-policy win
Biden used Democrats’ better-than-projected midterm-election results as an opportunity to reassure the world that the U.S. is committed to doing its part to address threats to the planet as a whole, including climate change.
“If the United States tomorrow were to, quote, withdraw from the world, a lot of things would change around the world. A whole lot would change,” Biden said in remarks at a press conference on Nov. 9, the day after the election.
The IRA’s $375 billion commitment to climate efforts, including manufacturing and purchasing incentives for electric vehicles GM, +3.47%
Current and former Biden climate officials told the Associated Press that the IRA was crafted in a way that will make it difficult for a future Republican Congress or president to reverse it. That’s in part because of the law’s tax incentives, which are the sort of low-tax strategies normally favored by Republicans, and because much of the advancing green technology would bring jobs to strongly Republican states.
Republicans won’t have a veto-proof majority in the new Congress, even if the GOP ends up with an advantage of a few seats. And even if a Republican wins the White House in 2024, the tax credits will be in place and will already be spurring industry, said Samantha Gross, head of climate and energy studies at the centrist Brookings Institution.
“It’s a lot of tax credits and goodies that make it hard to repeal,” Gross said.
At the climate negotiations in Egypt, Biden’s special climate envoy, John Kerry, said, “Most of what we’re doing cannot be changed by anyone else who comes to Washington, because most of what we do is in the private sector. The marketplace has made its decision to do what we need to do.”
Still, it won’t be all smooth sailing for Biden. Republicans, who as of Friday were close to clinching a modest advantage in the House (control of the Senate will likely hinge on a runoff election in Georgia), have said they will work to repeal parts of the law and advance their own climate and energy bill. They have accused Biden of contributing to rising energy prices by blocking more drilling of U.S. fossil fuels CL00, +2.76%.
Those fossil fuels are the major contributor to climate change.
While Biden may be moving slower than Republicans would like when it comes to permitting, he has in fact called for more oil drilling to help calm energy markets during the Russia-Ukraine crisis and has even chastised profitable oil companies for not releasing more product. It’s a narrow line for the president to walk and in doing so, he has raised the ire of some environmental groups.
Still, Biden argues there is scope for both near-term emergency energy policies and a long-term commitment to the transition from oil and gas.
“Russia’s war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels,” Biden said Friday. “[N]o action can be taken without a nation understanding that it can’t use energy as a weapon and hold the global economy hostage.”
Outside the U.S., there are also concerns that rising energy costs and a looming recession could dampen resolve to transition to cleaner energy. Germany has dipped back into heavy-polluting coal markets to ensure it has enough power for the cold winter ahead.
Methane remains a target
Efforts are under way at the COP27 summit to keep attention on methane, a more intense but shorter-lasting greenhouse gas than carbon emissions.
On Friday, the Biden administration detailed what it calls a “super-emitter response program” that would require oil and natural-gas NG00, -4.63%
operators to respond to credible third-party reports of high-volume methane leaks.
With an updated methane initiative, proposed Environmental Protection Agency rules first floated last year now target all drilling sites, including smaller wells.
The EPA estimates that in 2030, the proposal would reduce methane from covered fossil-fuel sources by 87% from 2005 levels.
The U.S. government also released a new draft report this year about how climate change is affecting America. The report determined that over the past 50 years, the U.S. has warmed 68% faster than the planet as a whole.
Since 1970, the continental U.S. has experienced 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, well above the average for the planet, according to a draft of the National Climate Assessment, which is the U.S. government’s definitive report on the effects of climate change and represents a range of federal agencies.
The effects of human-caused climate change on the United States “are already far-reaching and worsening,” the draft report says, but every added amount of warming that can be avoided or delayed will reduce harmful effects.
President Biden is attending a global climate meeting in Egypt with a giant domestic investment in tow — and he’s likely to face questions about how far the U.S. will go to pull other large greenhouse gas emitters along.
His attendance Friday at the U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, in the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, is the first stop on an around-the-world trip that will also take him to a meeting of Southeast Asian leaders in Cambodia and a Group of 20 summit meeting for leaders of the world’s largest economies in Bali, Indonesia.
Through a translator, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi welcomed Mr. Biden and said that since the U.S. media was present, he wanted to talk about overall issues in the Middle East. At the “center of debate” is human rights, el-Sisi said, adding that Egyptians have taken a “comprehensive approach” to human rights with the establishment of a national academy for human rights. Mr. Biden thanked the Egyptian president for his cooperation on climate change, and Egypt’s “strong” stance with the United Nations regarding the Russian war in Ukraine. Mr. Biden also said he will discuss human rights with el-Sisi.
Mr. Biden arrived in Egypt buoyed by a stronger-than-expected showing by the Democratic Party in Tuesday’s midterm elections, congressional passage this year of the largest climate investment in U.S. history and Russian military setbacks on the Ukrainian battlefield.
At the climate conference, Mr. Biden will discuss a new supplemental rule coming Friday that cracks down on methane emissions, a measure that expands on a similar regulation his administration released last year.
The 2021 rule targeted emissions of methane — a potent greenhouse gas that contributes significantly to global warming — from existing oil and gas wells nationwide, rather than focusing only on new wells as previous Environmental Protection Agency regulations have done. But this year’s rule goes a step further and takes aim at all drilling sites, including smaller wells that emit less than 3 tons (2.7 metric tonnes) of methane per year.
He also will spotlight one of his key domestic successes — the Democrats’ massive health care and climate change bill known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
The U.S. commitment of some $375 billion over a decade to fight climate change gives Mr. Biden greater leverage to press other nations to make good on their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and transition the global economy toward cleaner energy sources.
The president will be in a far different position from last year’s gathering, which came about during a particularly unhappy stretch in the bill’s tortuous path to passage.
That summit resulted in additional global commitments to meet the temperature targets agreed to in the Paris Climate Accord, which Mr. Biden rejoined after his predecessor, Donald Trump, pulled the U.S. from the deal.
In his remarks, Mr. Biden will also make his case that “good climate policy is good economic policy,” while calling on all major emitting countries to “align their ambition” to the international goal of trying to limit future global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the White House.
But even with these fresh efforts, America and the world have a long way to go to meet emissions targets that scientists hope will contain global warming. And the political will for more investment — as the global economy faces new headwinds — is shrinking.
Speaking at the COP27 summit Wednesday, former U.S. vice president and climate activist Al Gore called Biden a “climate hero in my book,” adding that “the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act represents the most significant pro-climate legislation ever passed by any nation in all of history.”
It remained to be seen whether Mr. Biden would address the item top of mind at the climate talks: loss and damage. That’s international negotiations language for asking rich countries like the United States, the top historic polluting nation, to pay what are essentially reparations for damages caused to poorer vulnerable nations that don’t emit much heat-trapping carbon dioxide.
In the past the United States has been against even talking about the issue, but it has now softened its stance, agreeing to the topic being discussed. Special Envoy John Kerry has even mentioned it in speeches. However, the U.S. doesn’t want liability to be part of any deal and when it comes to paying, Congress and the public have been reluctant to embrace many types of climate aid — and this is the most controversial type.
“I wish the U.S. would say something constructive about loss and damage” because it could get a vital issue moving, Princeton University climate and global affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer said.
Global eagerness for shifting away from fossil fuels has been tempered by the roiling of world energy markets after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At home and abroad, Biden is pressing oil and gas producers to boost production to meet demand and bring down prices that have funded the Kremlin’s war effort.
Prospects for a significant breakthrough are further dampened as major emitters such as China and India are sending less-senior delegations. Biden administration officials have tried to lower expectations for results at the meeting and instead cast it as a return to U.S. leadership on the issue.
Biden leaves Washington with votes still being tallied in key races that will determine control of both chambers of Congress. Still, the president was feeling the wind at his back as Democrats performed stronger than expected. He was likely to learn the results of the races that will sharply impact his ability to get things done in Washington while he was overseas.
While in Egypt, Biden will hold a bilateral meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, where they are to discuss the two nations’ strategic partnership, the Israel-Palestinian conflict and regional security issues.
Egypt’s foreign minister Sameh Shoukry told The Associated Press on Thursday that he understood Mr. Biden’s visit in Sharm el-Sheikh to be “an indication of the political will to move the process forward” on tackling global warming.
“We hope … it will resonate within the collective will of the negotiating groups that the United States is party to, but also in creating a momentum for the conference, for the parties to deliver what is expected,” he said.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden would also broach the issue of human rights when he meets with El-Sisi, whose government has taken an authoritarian turn, and with other leaders on the trip.
“He feels you’re not the American president — you’re not really doing your job as American president — if you’re not raising issues of human rights,” said Sullivan. “You can expect that he will raise human rights issues in that meeting, as he will with other leaders that he encounters at the G-20.”
Sullivan said Mr. Biden and other senior officials would also advocate for the release of imprisoned Egyptian pro-democracy activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah, whose family said they were told by prison officials he was undergoing an undefined medical intervention amid a hunger strike that escalated Sunday.
After his brief stop in Egypt, the president will continue on to Cambodia for a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to reinforce the U.S. commitment to the region in the face of China’s increasing assertiveness.
And then, in Indonesia, the president is set to hold his first sitdown as president with a newly empowered Chinese President Xi Jinping, who was awarded a norm-breaking third, five-year term as the Chinese Communist Party leader during the party’s national congress last month amid increasingly strained U.S.-China relations.
The White House has been working with Chinese officials over the last several weeks to arrange the meeting. Biden on Wednesday told reporters that he intended to discuss with Xi growing tensions between Washington and Beijing over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, trade policies, Beijing’s relationship with Russia and more.
“What I want to do with him when we talk is lay out what each of our red lines are and understand what he believes to be in the critical national interests of China, what I know to be the critical interests of the United States,” Mr. Biden said. “And determine whether or not they conflict with one another.”
Mr. Biden will also aim to demonstrate global resolve to stand up to Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and meet with two critical new partners in the effort to support Ukraine’s defense: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni. President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday that he was skipping the gatherings, averting a potentially awkward encounter. Sullivan said the president has no plans to interact with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who is attending in Putin’s stead.
In Cambodia, Mr. Biden will also discuss North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs in a trilateral meeting with leaders of South Korea and Japan.
___
Kim reported from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. AP writers Seth Borenstein in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, and Chris Megerian and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed.
In this week’s episode of “Bitcoin Bottom Line,” hosts C.J. Wilson and Josh Olszewicz are joined by special guest Daniel Batten to discuss bitcoin mining using organic materials. Batten is an expert on methane and explains the benefits of bioavailable energy. “If you are taking your power source, such as natural gas that would otherwise stay in the ground, it is carbon positive when you take it out of the pipeline. This will contribute to carbon emissions and is absolutely the type of bitcoin mining we want to do.”
Batten goes on to talk about how there is another form of methane that does not come from the ground and is freely emitted into the atmosphere. “This comes from farms or anywhere you have anaerobically decaying organic matter, which are things that rot without air. Global warming is about several different emissions that all have their global warming potential. If we compare methane to carbon dioxide, methane is more warming and breaks down faster than carbon dioxide and then turns into it.”
The United Nations Environment Programme has stated that methane is the strongest lever to reduce climate change over the next twenty-five years. “This is because it increases at a parabolic rate and is 84-times more warming than carbon dioxide. If you can find a way to use it as a fuel source, you are removing it from the atmosphere.”
Wilson, Olszewicz and Batten discuss the benefits to our environment of using these emissions and potential ways to do so. They wrap up the episode by talking about how this is not a single-solution problem and many preventative measures will need to be put in place to impact climate change. Batten states, “There is enough landfill gas around the world to power the Bitcoin network many times over. Bitcoin does not produce enough energy to solve this problem single-handedly.”
Describing it as a “cheap stunt,” actor Rainn Wilson introduced himself with a new name on social media Thursday, calling himself “Rainnfall Heat Wave Rising Sea Levels Wilson” in an effort to raise awareness about climate change.
On behalf of environmental advocacy group Arctic Basecamp, “The Office” star posted a video discussing the worldwide impacts of weather shifts in the Arctic.
“What happens in the Arctic, doesn’t stay in the Arctic,” Wilson said in his video. “As the polar caps melt, it drives up risks throughout the world, including extreme weather events that affect all of us.”
Join me @ @ArcticBasecamp in bringing attention to the melting issue. We need world leaders to take action at COP 27! The Arctic is melting at Millions of Liters per second, yet this problem can’t seem to make a name for itself, so we’ll make a name for it. Go to link in bio ⬆️ pic.twitter.com/TgEG84fOmQ
Wilson said changing his name, and asking others to follow suit, would help to raise awareness of these dangers, especially as world leaders have gathered in Egypt for the COP27 international climate change conference.
“As a cheap little stunt to help save planet Earth, I’ve changed my name on Twitter, Instagram and even on my fancy writing paper,” he quipped. “I’m an Arctic risk name changer which is going to be a game changer.”
Wilson tweeted that he was not actually able to change his name on Twitter, however, because of the temporary restriction on name changes for verified accounts, implemented by new Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The sitcom star also tweeted that if enough people changed their names, they would get the attention of world leaders at COP27.
“If enough of us do this, then maybe @cop27_egypt will be where our world leaders sit up and notice Arctic risks and introduce a solution,” he wrote.
Wilson already created a list of new names for his fellow celebrities, such as “Cardi The Arctic B Melting,” “Amy Poehler Bears Are Endangered,” “Samuel Earth Is Getting Hot As L. Jackson” and “Harrison Why Not Drive An Electric? Ford.”
Vanessa Nakate has become the face of climate activism in Africa. The 25-year-old started a youth climate movement in her native Uganda in 2019 and used an incident where she was cropped out of a photo with other climate activists to fuel her fight for climate justice. Ben Tracy shares more.
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SARASOTA, FL – SEPTEMBER 28: Wind gusts blow across Sarasota Bay as Hurricane Ian churns to the … [+] south on September 28, 2022 in Sarasota, Florida. The storm made a U.S. landfall at Cayo Costa, Florida this afternoon as a Category 4 hurricane with wind speeds over 140 miles per hour in some areas. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
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The analytical rigor and discipline that we see in modeling and managing mortality risk in life insurance policies is almost completely missing from managing climate risk in U.S. property and casualty (P&C) industry. Are one year P&C policies to blame? In this first of three posts, I will compare the largest European insurance company, AXA, with the largest P&C U.S. firms that publish a climate report: Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Travelers. Part I is an overview of the topic. Part II examines insurance practices or the liability side of a P&C’s balance sheet. Part III examines investment practices or the asset side of their balance sheets.
One would expect the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry to be at the front lines of the fight against climate change. Hurricanes, floods, and forest fires hit the pocketbooks of the insurance industry before anyone else’s. On top of that, it is well known that population growth since 1990 has been above average in the U.S. in regions that are at a high risk for hurricanes and wildfires. These climate catastrophes are also becoming more common. For instance, Travelers states in its 2021 TCFD report, “California wildfires…we now view events such as those of the past few years as being less remote than we thought previously.”
Climate risk affects both the asset (investments) and the liability side (obligations to make good on losses) of an insurer’s balance sheet). These companies should have expertise in climate as they process a vast number of claims relate to climate induced threats. Hence, if there was ever an industry where doing good coincides with doing well, it must be insurance. Moreover, the analytical rigor that actuaries bring to prediction and management of mortality risk in U.S. life insurance companies is worth celebrating. Why is that formidable intellectual and managerial talent absent in the management of climate risk of U.S. P&Cs? SwissRe, a prominent reinsurer’s 2021 climate report states, “from 2010 to 2020, realized loses have exceeded expectations in almost every year. Very likely, part of this gap can be attributed to trend effects due to climate change.”
The usual assumption in the U.S. P&C business has been that the possibility of a wildfire in say California is not correlated with a possible hurricane in Florida. What if these events begun to become correlated on account of climate change? Would a simultaneous wildfire in California and a large hurricane in Florida potentially jeopardize the capital position of an U.S. P&C insurer? More worrisome, a massive climate related disaster or a series of big losses will make the hit to the insurer’s capital exponential, as opposed to linear, over time.
My assessment is that the P&C industry in the U.S. has not been as visible or active as it could have been in leading the climate risk conversation. This is partly because the social, political and economic pressures in Europe are different, and partly because incentives for U.S. policy holders are somewhat more myopic.
Annual policy writing incentives
Is the annual policy writing cycle to blame? An insurance company that writes a life insurance policy for the next 15-30 years has incentives to devote actuarial resources to forecast your mortality. However, P&C insurance contracts, covering losses from climate events, are usually written for one year only and the incentives for the industry to look far into the future are necessarily limited.
The top ten U.S. P&C insurers
To understand the landscape a bit better, I started digging deeper into the sustainability disclosures of a top French insurer AXA XL (latest available 85 page 2022 climate report). AXA’s revenues were 99 billion euros, half of comes from the P&C business and around 20% from health-related insurance. I consider AXA to be the gold standard of thinking about how climate risk affects both their coverage and investment decisions.
To benchmark AXA with an insurer from the other side of the Atlantic, I found the top ten P&C insurers, ranked by revenues in the U.S. Those are State Farm, Berkshire Hathaway, Progressive, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, Travelers, USAA, Chubb, Farmers Insurance, and Nationwide. The returns were somewhat disappointing.
Berkshire Hathaway is well-known skeptic of ESG, and their sustainability discussion of their conglomerate covers a grand total of one page. Progressive puts out a 51-page sustainability report but the CEO statement in that report focuses heavily on Progressive’s DE&I efforts, not on climate. Progressive devotes one page to a generic discussion of risks (page 13 and 14) and publishes half a page of generic text on climate (page 15). On the investment side, Progressive states that 80% of their bonds have an MSCI ESG rating. They also state they have started tracking the LEED status of buildings in their CMBS (collateralized mortgage-backed securities) portfolio. Roughly $35 billion of Progressive’s 2021 $47 billion revenue comes from auto insurance for which climate is not such a big concern. However, around $2 billion of annual premiums comes from insuring physical risks where climate should be a risk factor. Moreover, the assets side of all these insurers’ balance sheets is exposed to climate risks.
Allstate’s 2021 10-K states that out of their $40 billion of premiums revenue, $27 billion relates to auto but a sizeable $10 billion comes from insuring homes. Allstate puts out a 106-page sustainability report but the word “climate” appears only on page 65. The climate discussion spans three pages after page 65. Allstate says it has enough capital to withstand climate stress.
The efforts of USAA, Farmers and Nationwide in the climate area appear to be minimal. USAA has a webpage labeled “environmental responsibility” where they talk about recycling, reduction of paper usage, savings in water and energy usage. Farmers publishes a page called “corporate citizenship” where their focus is mostly on their employees, diversity and inclusion efforts, cutting usage of plastic, paper, planting of trees, charitable contributions, involvement with charitable NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and the “Farmers Insurance Open,” a golf tournament they organize with the PGA (Professional Golf Association).
Nationwide puts out a 15-page corporate responsibility report that covers communities, giving, food security, work with the American Red Cross, United Way, investments in affordable housing, health care, education, clean water, children’s wellbeing, diversity and inclusion efforts, diverse boards of directors, ethics and governance. They devote one page to the environment which touches on reducing their own carbon footprint, reducing waste, water usage, paper usage and landfill diversion.
Liberty Mutual has put out its second TCFD report in 2021. Travelers and Chubb have also published a TCFD report. So, it seems worthwhile to compare the efforts of AXA with these three U.S. firms Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and Travelers. Before embarking on a deep dive, it is worth reiterating that seven of the top 10 U.S. P&C insurers do not report a serious discussion of the implications of climate risk on their balance sheets. The default answer might be to argue that their climate risk exposures are not large enough to warrant a bigger discussion. I doubt that hypothesis. I have to assume that absence of reporting implies absence of either an internal consensus on the importance of climate inside their companies or a lack of investment in understanding that risk.
The discussion follows a series of questions and different strategies followed by AXA relative to the three American insurers: Chubb, Liberty and Travelers. The comparison is simply meant to be a benchmarking exercise. I understand that every firm would likely follow its own strategy given their opportunities and constraints. Moreover, every company has its own learning curve in building infrastructure required to support such thinking and institute organization wide buy in and processes.
Here are some high-level findings that cover both the liability and asset side of the companies’ balance sheets.
High level findings
Has the insurer articulated a climate strategy?
All the four companies have articulated their climate strategy. I will leave the discussion of the details to the next part. As a summary, AXA is the only company that linked strategic goals to specific KPIs (key performance indicators). The U.S. insurers produced high level statements without clear links to numerical targets.
What are the insurer’s views on double materiality?
AXA is a staunch supporter of double materiality while thinking about ESG. For the uninitiated, “double materiality” simply means thinking about the impact of climate on their investments but the externalities imposed by the operations of the firms underlying these investments on climate. The other insurers do not devote much or any space to double materiality.
Is a full dashboard of metrics presented?
Ideally, the firm should present a dashboard of its metrics benchmarked to some objective target or standard and time series data of its metrics over time so that the user can track progress, both over time and keeping time constant, to a benchmarked portfolio. AXA has an excellent dashboard along these lines. I could not find such a detailed dashboard for the other insurers.
Voluntary audits of climate data
PwC has issued a limited assurance report on AXA’s processes and underlying assumptions. The other insurers do not discuss assurance of climate risk metrics and processes.
Is executive and staff compensation tied to climate goals?
AXA, states that the following three key performance indicators (KPIs) will be included in the compensation packages of executives and 5,000 AXA employees: (i) Dow Jones Sustainability Index ranking; (ii) reduction of operational carbon emissions; and (iii) reduction of investment-related carbon footprint (for its general account assets). I did not find such a commitment in the disclosures of the other insurers.
I will show in Parts II and III that AXA is similarly quite distinctive compared to its three selected U.S. counterparts. I have not done an in-depth analysis of the differences in the regulatory environments of these four companies regarding corporate reporting and this may explain some of the differences.
In Part II, I will compare AXA to these three companies in terms of their insurance business or the liability side of their balance sheet.
KlimaDAO’s Fiat to Retirement enables tokenized carbon offsetting via a credit card, unlocking climate-positive action for more users than ever before.
Press Release –
Nov 10, 2022
SAN FRANCISCO, November 10, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– KlimaDAO, the leading provider of tokenized carbon credits, has today announced the launch of its Fiat to Retirement payment service. It gives users of the tokenized carbon market the ability to offset their carbon credits using fiat payment gateways provided by C3.app and Offsetra LLC.
Fiat to Retirement enables tokenized carbon credits to be retired without requiring a Web3 wallet to be set up, a process that can sometimes be a barrier to accessing the market for those who are not experienced in managing a crypto wallet.
By improving access and making the retirement of tokenized carbon credits accessible for all customers, the benefits of this market can be passed on to more consumers. Benefits of the tokenized carbon market include:
C3 will accept wire transfers on behalf of Klima Infinity clients wishing to offset their emissions directly using fiat. Offsetra uses Stripe as a third-party payment provider to facilitate transactions.
Giorgio Donà-Danioni of C3 said: “By providing this service to KlimaDAO we can continue to help connect the legacy market with the digital carbon market and overcome market barriers associated with the adoption of Web3 tech. We expect to see further growth of this market and are committed to providing better and more transparent services for consumers in line with their needs.”
Sy Zygy, Product Lead for KlimaDAO, said: “By allowing our users the ability to pay for their tokenized carbon credit retirements directly with a credit card without needing to create a cryptocurrency wallet, we make it even easier for non-crypto users, particularly our business users, to take direct climate positive action. We have already facilitated over $4 billion worth of carbon asset transactions in the last year, and Fiat to Retirement is an important step forward in our mission to expand access to the tokenized carbon market by making it easy for any person, business, or application developer to directly participate in the market.”
About KlimaDAO
KlimaDAO is an on-chain scaling solution for the Voluntary Carbon Market. KlimaDAO aims to open up the market to greater transparency and efficiency by combining tokenized carbon credits with a blockchain-enabled technology stack. If you are a business looking to offset your carbon footprint, get started here or reach out to sales@klimadao.finance.
About C3.app
C3.app is a Web3 carbon bridge that provides software and infrastructure for the Web3 and legacy carbon markets. C3’s objective is to better link these markets and provide benefits for the originators and consumers of carbon credits. Visit c3.app to learn more, or reach out directly to sales@c3.app.
This week, world leaders and diplomats are converging on the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh for the 27th United Nations Climate Conference – better known as COP27.
Meanwhile, some 12,000 kilometers away from the sun-drenched beaches and high-level negotiations, another climate battle is already underway.
Among those attending COP27 is 20-year-old Helena Gualinga. She hails from a remote village in the Ecuadorian Amazon – home of the Kichwa Sarayaku community, who have been fighting for climate justice and indigenous land rights for decades.
And with historic results. In 2012, the Sarayaku community successfully took the Ecuadorian government to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, after it allowed oil exploration activities on their territory without their consent.
(Among the court’s findings was that Ecuador had put the Kichwa Sarayaku peoples’ right to life and cultural integrity in serious risk and was reportedly ordered to pay more than $1.3 million in compensation).
The landmark legal case had a lasting impact on Gualinga, and she hasn’t shied away from calling out the inadequacy of former COPs.
In response to the perceived failures of COP25, Gualinga co-founded Polluters Out, a global youth coalition challenging the UN and governments to cut ties with the fossil fuel industry.
Here, she tells CNN Opinion why she has reservations about COP27’s effectiveness, the importance of including indigenous people in climate crisis talks and why she doesn’t identify with the term “activist.”
The views expressed in this commentary are her own.
CNN: Describe growing up in the Ecuadorian Amazon and how this influenced your relationship with nature.
Gualinga: I spent a significant part of my childhood in my mother’s Sarayaku community in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where I have a big “ayllu” or “family.”
It was an upbringing both in nature and in coexistence with nature – a lifestyle and culture we carry with pride.
Here, we are surrounded by big Ceibo trees and beautiful waters. We live in huts made out of wood and palm leaves, built with ancestral practices. Our subsistence has solely depended on nature – but the climate crisis, extraction of resources and deforestation have all contributed to devastation of our territory, which impacts the wildlife and our communities.
All of this has influenced our philosophy and declaration – Kawsak Sacha, meaning “The Living Forest,” where everything is alive.
The forest, water and mountains are considered living beings and therefore to honor and protect these living beings, the Sarayaku is fighting for legal recognition of them to create a new category of conservation.
With traditional conservation methods increasingly being questioned, it’s clear that the world needs to look towards Indigenous people to learn how to protect our ecosystems.
CNN: The Sarayaku case in 2012 was a landmark victory for indigenous rights – how did it shape how you see the world?
Gualinga: The Sarayaku case is a symbol of resistance. Throughout my childhood, the leaders of my community – many of whom are family – were violated, facing defamation, violence, torture and criminalization for their defiance. It sparked rage in me and my community.
But when Sarayaku won, we showed the world that you can fight big oil because no political or economic force is powerful enough to exploit land when its people unite.
Our victory inspired other Indigenous peoples protecting their lands and sends a powerful message to the companies and banks invested in projects that violate our rights. Their time is up!
After living in fear of losing our home, my peers and I have followed in our elders’ footsteps in defying the systems that uphold violence against people and nature.
Last month, a youth gathering was held in Sarayaku where Indigenous youth from across the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon gathered to discuss the future of our territories and reaffirm our commitment to protect Kawsak Sacha.
Kawsak Sacha – a decolonized shift in mindset, rooted in Indigenous practices – is vital to stand against human greed and fight climate change. We need to replace Western conservation methods with Indigenous stewardship. Western models treat nature as something separate from humans, while Indigenous peoples see ourselves as part of nature, which we have lived with for thousands of years, and seek to pass on to future generations.
CNN: You don’t identify with the label ‘activist’ – why is that?
Gualinga: I don’t identify as an activist because I do not believe we had a choice. Where I come from, most of the Amazonian Indigenous population would be considered “activists.”
If Sarayaku did not put up a fight, our territory would have been destroyed. It’s a matter of survival rather than acting out of choice.
My region, Latin America, is one of the most dangerous places for Indigenous people and land defenders. Our life’s work has been to protect our lands – our existence is our resistance.
The mere existence of people in the Amazon is what is securing the future of the Amazon. Does that make us activists? No. It is simply part of who we are and where we come from. It’s a defense mechanism of nature itself.
CNN: Why are indigenous voices important in the global conversation on climate?
Gualinga: Our communities have been raising the alarm bell on the climate crisis as we see the changes to the environment firsthand. We are on the front lines of keeping fossil fuels in the ground as we work to defend our lands.
As the world is moving away from fossil fuels, it’s now being replaced by the green energy industry. However, the transition to a green economy must ensure that it includes Indigenous peoples in decision-making – and that it does not repeat the same colonialist approach of the fossil fuels industry.
However, the green energy industry is currently not adequately including Indigenous peoples in decision-making.
Where will these resources come from? Unfortunately, indigenous territories will be ground zero for exploitative practices in the transition to green energy. For example, across Latin America, mining for lithium, ‘the new gold,’ is intensifying and leaving indigenous communities in extremely poor conditions.
In the Amazon we have also seen hydro dam projects happen on Indigenous territories without prior and informed consent from Indigenous people. Often these projects are classified as “green,” however impacts on Indigenous communities have not been adequately addressed and accounted for.
It’s essential that Indigenous people not only have a say in climate negotiations, but that discussions are also led by Indigenous people, so that all climate action is guided by climate justice.
Indigenous people have tended ecosystems for thousands of years. The knowledge we have obtained interacting and coexisting with nature for years is essential to understand how we will restore and find balance betweenhumans and nature.
To understand this, let’s look at the numbers. Indigenous peoples comprise less than 5% of the world population but we protect 80% of the Earth’s biodiversity in the forests, deserts, grasslands, and marine environments in which we have lived for centuries.
CNN: Are you hopeful COP27 will bring change?
Gualinga: I do not have high expectations for COP27. A sense of urgency about the climate crisis has still not reached the negotiating rooms despite millions of people suffering from its devastating consequences.
COP has yet to deliver on the big promises the parties have made throughout the years. In particular, COP27 needs to make sure Indigenous people are at the front and center at the negotiations to ensure an outcome that accounts for the injustice we are facing in protecting our rights, lands and the world’s biodiversity.
Countries must put nature at the heart of their mitigation and adaptation plans.
And the most pressing conversation to be had is the end of fossil fuel extraction. The climate crisis will continue if we do not close the oil tap, halt extractive industries and the financing of energy projects that violate the rights of Indigenous peoples and threaten ecosystems like my home.
My community, Sarayaku, for example, is currently divided into several oil blocks – meaning the government has allocated our territories for the exploration for and production of oil – which means we live under a constant threat. Much of the trade of Ecuadorian Amazon crude oil is financed by European banks, some of which may be attending COP27 with inconsistent promises and Net Zero pledges.
COP27 needs to recognize the expiration date of fossil fuels is now. It needs to acknowledge our wisdom on climate solutions as stewards of the land and provide funding and resources so we can help to cultivate a just future.
Nature is at stake – and it will not be safe until governments are held accountable.
“There are climate catastrophes and destruction, and my country ends up borrowing money from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to deal with the repercussions… Our countries cannot develop because of the costs of the climate crisis,” a young African activist said during one of the many protests that took place today at the Tonino Lamborghini International Conference Centre.
“Our futures are being stolen from us! This is an injustice!” he declared.
‘Loss and damage’ refers to costs that are being incurred by countries that have contributed the least to climate change but are bearing the brunt of its impacts, such as sea-level rise and increasingly common extreme weather events.
UN News/Laura Quiñones
Youth activists protest demanding leaders to address their loss and damage responsibility.
Currently, developing countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and a good number of African nations, are forced to pay very high costs to recover from climate-induced disasters, and the youth believe that it is time for big polluters to pay their ecological debt.
“This is an issue that has been put aside COP after COP. The fact that we are in an African country this year is very significant. It is a scientific fact that countries with the least economic resources and with barely any responsibility for emissions are the ones that end up suffering the most... It is about reparation and social justice,” Bruno Rodriguez, Argentine youth activist told UN News.
The call from the youth was clear: They want the establishment of a loss and damage finance facility that can provide additional and readily accessible funding to help developing nations adjust to and limit the “irreversible life changing impacts on young people.”
“We don’t want loans; we don’t want more debt. Pay up now for loss and damage,” was the message of an activist from the Philippines.
A boy sits on the debris of his house which was destroyed in Hurricane Iota in Bilwi, Nicaragua.
The scientific community agrees
The yearly 10 New Insights in Climate Science report, which, as its name indicates, delivers a concise synthesis of the most pressing findings on climate change-related research to inform COP negotiations, also highlighted the importance of addressing loss and damage, calling it an “urgent planetary imperative”.
During the report’s release this Thursday, which coincided with ‘Youth and Science Day’ at COP27, scientists underscored that losses and damages are already occurring and will increase significantly based on current trajectories models.
“While many losses and damages can be calculated in monetary terms, there are also non-economic losses and damages that need to be better understood and accounted for,” the report’s authors warned, calling for an “urgent” coordinated global policy response on the matter.
The insights document, compiled by the Climate Research Programme and supported by UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), also highlights that many of these consequences cannot be avoided with mere adaptation measures and that acting swiftly to reduce emissions is a much better option.
“The report says that the potential to adapt to climate change is not limitless, and that will not prevent all losses and damage that we can see now… I applaud parties for getting lost in damage onto the agenda here at COP27,” declared UNFCCC chief Simon Stiell.
However, he said, responding for loss and damage does not let countries off the hook regarding their emissions.
“Adaptation actions cannot substitute for ambitious mitigation action [to reduce emissions]”, he underscored.
🔴 Live from #COP27: Press Conference: 10 Insights into Climate Science | UN Climate Change
For the authors of the report, the reality that tens of thousands of people are dying from climate change impacts right now, needs to be at the heart of negotiations.
They also highlighted that over three billion people will inhabit ‘vulnerability hotspots’ – areas with the highest susceptibility to being adversely affected by climate-driven hazards – by 2050, double what it is today.
Some of the other insights in the report include warnings that climate migration, health risks, and national security issues are increasing because of climate change. You can find them all here.
UN News/Laura Quiñones
Letters of the children and the youth as seen as their dedicated pavilion at COP27.
Youth takeover
On their day, the young adults, teens and children at COP27 took part in different “takeovers” and were seen – and heard – in almost every corner of the conference centre.
They expressed themselves not only by protesting, but also with music, dance, colorful attire and wall drawings with messages to world leaders.
Another chants heard today was “kick polluters out” as three NGOs denounced that on the list of registered participants – which is now up to over 45,000 according to the UNFCCC – there are over 600 fossil fuel lobbyists, an increase of 25 per cent compared to last year.
“The influence of fossil fuel lobbyists is greater than frontline countries and communities. Delegations from African countries and indigenous communities are dwarfed by representatives of corporate interests,” a group of protesters from the organization Kick Big Polluters Out shouted at the main square.
Ambassador Wael Aboulgmagd, Special Representative for the COP27 Egyptian Presidency, said during a press conference that while he could not tell whether these attendees were lobbyists or just members or certain entities, there were indeed many industries contributing to emissions present, such as cement and fertilizer companies. But they were not participating in the negotiations, he clarified.
He said that he expected that during Decarbonization Day, which will be Friday, many of them will demonstrate how they are moving forward on reducing their emissions.
Regarding the overall negotiations, Mr. Aboulgmagd said that there is now a first draft decision text for the mitigation work programme that shows “very good progress”, and that on Saturday morning, delegations would begin providing inputs for the outcome document of COP27.
Thematic Days: Youth I COP27
Want to know more? Check out our special events page, where you can find all our coverage of the COP27 climate summit, including stories and videos, explainers, podcasts and our daily newsletter.
One of the biggest surprises at last year’s United Nations climate summit came in the form of a handshake.
US climate envoy John Kerry and his China counterpart Xie Zhenhua did so at COP26 in Glasgow as they announced a commitment to cooperate on the climate crisis. The countries vowed to work together to reduce their fossil fuel emissions, and China pledged to release a plan to slash its emissions of methane – a powerful planet-warming gas – which it delivered on this week.
The terms of the agreement weren’t terribly specific, and it didn’t come with many measurable action points. But the deal was still widely applauded as a step in the right direction in an otherwise discontented geopolitical relationship.
It didn’t last long.
The newfound cooperation abruptly fell apart in August when China suspended climate talks with the US – one of several measures it took in response to US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan.
The question now is whether COP27 in Egypt can provide the jolt of momentum needed to mend the countries’ climate change relationship. At an event hosted by the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Kerry said he has spoken to Xie this week, though they have not had any formal meetings.
“We need to be talking to each other because we’re the two biggest economies in the world and we’re the two biggest emitters in the world,” Kerry said at the event. “And we have a common interest in working together to try to reduce emissions and be leaders on this level. So the answer is I’ve said to China many times publicly, and President Biden has indicated to them, that we are open to resuming climate and hope that we’ll be able to.”
Before the summit, Kerry told reporters that the ultimate decision to resume formal talks rests with China President Xi Jinping. Biden and Xi are expected to meet at the upcoming G20 summit in Indonesia.
“That will come from one person, and until then we are in limbo,” Kerry said of Xi.
There are many reasons, as Kerry notes, that the two countries should be in sync on the climate crisis. Not only are they historically the most to blame for climate change, their actions also have significant sway in the rest of the world, which look to the US and China to lead on the issue.
Yet, now that cooperation is ostensibly at a standstill, some experts are weighing whether it is necessary; could competition lead to faster change?
Going into Egypt, one big thing is different from last year – the US has actually passed a massive climate law.
Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act contained $370 billion in clean energy and climate funding and included tax credits for electric vehicles and batteries written in a way to compete with China.
But China had a head start in the clean-energy race and has spent the last decade cruising ahead on wind and solar. Last year, China installed 80% of the world’s new offshore wind capacity, dwarfing the rest of the world’s nations, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. It is also surging ahead on electric vehicles and buses; about a quarter of all new passenger cars registered in China are electric.
The US has a lot of catching up to do, but it’s “back in the race,” said Kelly Sims Gallagher, a professor of energy and environmental policy at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
“I believe a healthy competition between the two countries will benefit everyone,” she said. “This new money is going to be a really important global injection into clean energy technology and innovation, and it’s likely to catalyze even more (development) in China. But in many respects, China currently has a first-mover advantage; there’s a lot of work for the US to do.”
In China, the US climate bill is being viewed as a “competitive gesture,” and with a certain amount of skepticism that the US can move as fast as it wants to on the clean energy transition, according to Li Shuo, a Beijing-based global policy adviser for Greenpeace East Asia.
“Part of this sentiment is sour grapes, but I think part of it is based on cool-headed analysis – if you are a country who manages to ramp up renewable energy from zero to huge in 10 years, you know the secret to success better than anyone else,” Shuo said.
Chinese officials “are not convinced the US is capable of replicating it,” Shuo said. “Only the US can prove itself and the stakes – our climate future – are high.”
The US and China – due to the sheer scale of their planet-warming emissions, money and political heft – have historically been the power players at international climate summits. It’s no different this year, with all eyes on the two countries and whether they’ll resume collaboration.
Xie announced Tuesday at COP27 that his country has developed a national strategy to reduce its methane emissions, fulfilling the promise it made at last year’s summit as it pledged to cooperate with the US.
Speaking at a panel event in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, Xie said China’s methane strategy will focus on three areas: reducing methane from its energy sector, agriculture and waste management areas.
However, within the energy sector, Xie only mentioned reducing emissions from oil and gas – and didn’t mention China’s coal sector, which produces much of the country’s methane emissions in addition to CO2 emissions. China produces the most methane emissions from coal mines in the world, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
Xie’s announcement is the latest evidence that cooperation between the world’s two largest emitters matters – even more so because of the peer-pressure effect it can have on other countries.
“We have seen times where [US-China cooperation] is producing good results; a positive force in both the domestic context of each country, and also a boost to the international discussions,” said Nate Hultman, director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Global Sustainability, and a former Kerry official. “In that context, the suspension of the talks is a hindrance.”
The end of the US-China agreement triggered an information void as the lines of communication shut down – something that could breed mistrust, according to Sims Gallagher.
“I’m sure China knows we passed the (Inflation Reduction Act),” Sims Gallagher said. “At a high level that’s understood. But at the granular level, it’s much harder to understand what’s happening and why it’s happening.”
A senior administration official conceded they think something has been lost due to the suspended talks, killing the momentum that came out of the US and China’s joint declaration at Glasgow last year. That official said it is still an open question whether cooperation can continue this year.
Ultimately, it is in China’s best interest, and the world’s, to resume talks with the United States, said Joanna Lewis, associate professor of energy and environment at Georgetown University, because it elevates China’s stature going into a key international summit – allowing a country that is often cast as the climate villain some positive spin.
“When the Chinese lead negotiator and the US lead negotiator get up before the world together, it calls China out as a leader and puts them on a new level of climate leadership,” Lewis said. “Particularly during an international negotiation where they’re not always viewed as taking a leadership role.”
Decision-making power is still held at the national and international level, often failing to (financially) enable local actors to lead climate action. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS
Opinion by Anne Jellema (capetown, south africa)
Inter Press Service
CAPETOWN, South Africa, Nov 09 (IPS) – Anne Jellema is CEO of HivosImagine a world where the people hit hardest by climate crisis have a say in how to stop it. Imagine that youth, Indigenous Peoples, women, and others most affected by global warming have the resources to implement their own climate solutions. Solutions that are highly effective because they meet local needs, suit the local context, and create sustainable economic opportunities for local people. This world would be one where people have a much better chance of surviving, and even thriving, despite the massive upheavals of the climate crisis.
Climate finance remains a pipe dream at local level
At the global level, to achieve the key commitments made in Paris, climate investment should count in trillions rather than billions. The 100 billion per year climate financing target from 2020 onwards has already been missed. Industrialized countries have overwhelmingly failed to provide anything close to the scale of climate financing needed – let alone the specific demand for a loss and damage financing facility.
And at the local level, although ever more governments and stakeholders understand the importance of shifting resources, leadership and agency to the local level, the world pictured above is still far from reach
There are many reasons why climate finance doesn’t end up at the local level.
Some are related to complex rules and requirements in accessing international funding, which local actors often lack the knowledge, network, skills and/or scale to comply with.
Decision-making power is still held at the national and international level, often failing to (financially) enable local actors to lead climate action. Even at national level, those most affected by climate change often have the least say in setting priorities for climate policy and funding.
What needs to happen
Recently, Hivos – as part of the Voices for Just Climate Action alliance – studied a handful of promising alternative finance delivery mechanisms. While some have performed better than others, they share the potential for downward accountability and effective participation of different voices as an integral part of the funding mechanism. Based on the study, we put forth the following recommendations which governments, international intermediaries, and global banks and funds should give serious consideration to at the upcoming COP27.
Firstly, create mechanisms for participatory funding and oversight structures to ensure that local actors drive decision making. This includes addressing structural inequalities faced by women, youth, children, Indigenous people, and other marginalized groups, and fully integrating these groups in the design and implementation of adaptation and mitigation actions.
Secondly, routinely set concrete targets for funds that need to reach climate solutions driven by local actors. Provide grants instead of loans, and use long-term, patient and flexible programmatic funding instead of short-term, ad hoc project funding. At COP27 the rich countries must deliver robust action to scale up grant-based climate finance to the developing world.
Thirdly, ensure easy access for local actors by simplifying fund application processes.
Lastly, decisive steps must be taken to use national, not international financing mechanisms and structures for channeling finance. The International Institute of Environment and Development (IIED) designed a climate finance delivery mechanism that bypasses international intermediaries. Here, money flows directly to local civil society, national and local governments, and/or the private sector.
Hivos joins hands with its partners and climate movements in demanding that concrete, gender-responsive targets are set to get climate funding into the hands of local actors, and new funding mechanisms are developed by and with climate-affected communities to make climate finance work for them.
To conclude…commitments are vital, but focus must shift
The COP Presidency, this year in the hands of Egypt, has called for significant progress on commitments and pledges, especially on the delivery of the annual USD 100 billion from developed countries to developing countries. Failure to keep to this commitment has often been a breaking point in climate negotiations and has damaged trust between countries.
Equally important, however, is shifting our focus from the volume of climate finance to its effectiveness. Only then will a world governed by climate justice be within reach.
Western security advisers are warning delegates at the COP27 climate summit not to download the host Egyptian government’s official smartphone app, amid fears it could be used to hack their private emails, texts and even voice conversations.
Policymakers from Germany, France and Canada were among those who had downloaded the app by November 8, according to two separate Western security officials briefed on discussions within these delegations at the U.N. climate summit.
Other Western governments have advised officials not to download the app, said another official from a European government. All of the officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss international government deliberations.
The potential vulnerability from the Android app, which has been downloaded thousands of times and provides a gateway for participants at COP27, was confirmed separately by four cybersecurity experts who reviewed the digital application for POLITICO.
The app is being promoted as a tool to help attendees navigate the event. But it risks giving the Egyptian government permission to read users’ emails and messages. Even messages shared via encrypted services like WhatsApp are vulnerable, according to POLITICO’s technical review of the application, and two of the outside experts.
The app also provides Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which created it, with other so-called backdoor privileges, or the ability to scan people’s devices.
World leaders, including Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres pose for a group photo during the Sharm El-Sheikh Climate Implementation Summit of the COP27 climate conference in Egypt | Sean Gallup/Getty Images
On smartphones running Google’s Android software, it has permission to potentially listen into users’ conversations via the app, even when the device is in sleep mode, according to the three experts and POLITICO’s separate analysis. It can also track people’s locations via smartphone’s built-in GPS and Wi-Fi technologies, according to two of the analysts.
The app is nothing short of “a surveillance tool that could be weaponized by the Egyptian authorities to track activists, government delegates and anyone attending COP27,” said Marwa Fatafta, digital rights lead for the Middle East and North Africa for Access Now, a nonprofit digital rights organization.
“The application is a cyber weapon,” said one security expert after reviewing it, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect colleagues attending COP.
The Egyptian government did not respond to requests for comment. Google said it had reviewed the app and had not found any violations to its app policies.
The potential security risk comes as thousands of high-profile officials descend on Sharm El-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort town, where so-called QR codes, or quasi-bar codes that direct people to download the smartphone application, are dotted around the city.
Participants at COP27 include global leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, though such high profile politicians are unlikely to download another government’s app.
The experts who spoke to POLITICO said that much of the data and access that the COP27 app gets is fairly standard. But, according to three of these specialists, the combination of the Egyptian government’s track record on human rights and the types of people who would downloaded the app represent a cause for concern.
Strange and extensive access
Three of the researchers said the app posed surveillance risks to those who download it due to its widespread permissions to review people’s devices, though the extent of the risk remains unclear.
Elias Koivula, a researcher at WithSecure, a cybersecurity firm, reviewed the Android app for POLITICO and said he had found no evidence people’s emails had been read. Many of the permissions granted to the climate change conference app also have benign purposes like keeping people up-to-date with the latest travel information around the summit, he added.
But Koivula said other permissions granted to the app appeared “strange” and could potentially be used to track people’s movements and communications. So far, he said he had no evidence that such activity had taken place.
Not all the experts agreed on the risks.
Paul Shunk, a security intelligence engineer at cybersecurity firm Lookout, said he had found no evidence the app had access to emails, describing the idea that it posed a surveillance risk as “strange.” He was confident the app was not built as typical spyware, pouring cold water on claims the app functioned as a listening device. Shunk said it could not record audio if it was running in the background, which makes it “almost completely unsuitable for spying on users.”
The COP27 app uses location tracking “extensively,” Shunk said, but seemingly for legitimate purposes like route planning for summit attendees. It lacked the ability to access location in the background, based on Android permissions, which would be what the app would need for continuous location tracking, he added.
The other two cybersecurity analysts who reviewed the app spoke on the condition of anonymity to safeguard their ongoing security work and to protect colleagues attending the climate change conference.
“Let me put it this way: I wouldn’t download this app onto my phone,” said one of those experts. Those two the researchers also warned that once the application had been downloaded onto a device, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to remove its ability to access people’s sensitive data — even after it had been deleted.
POLITICO checked the app’s potential security risks via two open cybersecurity tools, and both raised concerns about its ability to listen to people’s conversations, track their locations and alter how the app operates without asking for permission.
Both Google and Apple approved the app to appear in their separate app stores. All of the analysts only reviewed the Android version of the app, and not the separate app created for Apple’s devices. Apple declined to comment on the separate app created for its App Store.
Egypt’s track(ing) record
Adding to rights groups’ concerns is the track record of the Egyptian government to monitor its people. In the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, Cairo has clamped down on dissidents and used local emergency rules to track its citizens online and offline activity, according to a report by Privacy International, a nonprofit organization.
As part of the smartphone app’s privacy notice, the Egyptian government says it has the right to use information provided by those who have downloaded the app, including GPS locations, camera access, photos and Wi-Fi details.
“Our application reserves the right to access customer accounts for technical and administrative purposes and for security reasons,” the privacy statement said.
Yet the technical review, both by POLITICO and the outside experts of the COP27 smartphone application discovered further permissions that people had granted, unwittingly, to the Egyptian government that were not made public via its public statements.
These included the application having the right to track what attendees did on other apps on their phone; connecting users’ smartphones via Bluetooth to other hardware in ways that could lead to data being offloaded onto government-owned devices; and independently linking individuals’ phones to Wi-Fi networks, or making calls on their behalf without them knowing.
“The Egyptian government cannot be entrusted with managing people’s personal data given its dismal human rights record and blatant disregard for privacy,” said Fatafta, the digital rights campaigner.
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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday approved the final sovereign green bonds framework to fund environmentally sustainable projects.
Green bonds are financial instruments that generate funds for investment in environmentally sustainable and climate-suitable projects. Also, green bonds command a relatively lower cost of capital compared to regular bonds.
Today’s approval will strengthen India’s commitment towards its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDCs) targets, adopted under the Paris Agreement, and help in attracting global and domestic investments in eligible green projects, the Ministry of Finance said.
The proceeds generated from the issuance of such bonds will be deployed in public sector projects which help in reducing the carbon intensity of the economy.
The framework comes close in the footsteps of India’s commitments under “Panchamrit” as elucidated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 at Glasgow in November 2021.
The approval is the fulfillment of the announcement in the Union Budget FY 2022-23 by the Union Finance Minister that Sovereign Green Bonds will be issued for mobilising resources for green projects.
An independent and globally renowned organisation – CICERO – was appointed to evaluate India’s green bonds framework and certify alignment of the framework with ICMA’s Green Bond Principles and international best practices.
After due deliberation and consideration, the organisation has rated India’s Green Bonds Framework as ‘Medium Green’ with a ‘Good’ governance score, the ministry said.
In November last year, PM Modi, while speaking at COP26 Summit in Glasgow, presented five elements – Panchamrit – to deal with the climate change challenge.
“First- India will reach its non-fossil energy capacity to 500 GW by 2030. Second – India will meet 50 per cent of its energy requirements from renewable energy by 2030. Third- India will reduce the total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes from now onwards till 2030. Fourth- By 2030, India will reduce the carbon intensity of its economy by less than 45 percent. And fifth- by the year 2070, India will achieve the target of Net Zero,” he had said.
The 7th Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Opinion by Azza Karam (new york)
Inter Press Service
NEW YORK, Nov 09 (IPS) – In this year’s COP 27 two-weeklong summit in Egypt, which concludes November 18, a rough count indicates there will be 40 different sessions organised by, for, and about, religious engagements in/on climate change and related issues. This is likely the highest number of events by and around religious actors, organised at a COP event.
The reason? Religions, religious engagement, interfaith, etc., are the flavour of our geopolitical times. For better or worse.
His Holiness Pope Francis and His Eminence the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar were just addressing a major conference in Bahrain on East-West relations, with the King of Bahrain. After also putting in a similar appearance and speaking together with the President of Kazakhstan, in September. Both countries were hosting major international meetings of religious leaders, in the fanciest of hotels, convened from many corners of the world, replete with lavish food banquets and generous hospitality and care for their every need.
I should know, as I am a most grateful recipient, albeit not a religious leader, but an aspiring servant to religious multilateralism. But I run ahead of myself here.
In convening, countries appear to be competing with Saudi Arabia, which hosted such a seminal gathering (in May 2022, bringing together Buddhist and Hindu faith leaders, for the first time, as equals with their Muslim, Christian and Jewish brethren), as well as with the UAE, Qatar, and Oman, who are also hosting international gatherings of religious leaders this very month.
This year alone, there have been over 50 meetings of religious actors, that is more than 2 per month, and this is not a comprehensive tally.
Each of these major and rather expensive conferences, provides a platform not unlike the UN General Assembly, where each leader gets his (for invariably they are mostly men) time to speak, often eloquently, about their own faith tradition.
Each of these speeches regales with how diligent the efforts of faith/community/organisations are, to secure peace and human dignity for all people. As they remind of the spiritual wisdom each faith upholds, they also speak of past and upcoming initiatives, meant to safeguard dignity for all. Sometimes they also remember to speak about the planet and our responsibility to save it.
As someone who spent decades serving at the United Nations and in diverse international academic and development organisations, and now listening to the religious actors speaking, I find myself asking the same question: if each of these governments, and now these religious bodies, are working so hard and serving so amazingly, why is our world the way it is?
Why are so many governments and peoples and communities at war with one another inside and outside nation-state boundaries? Why are we listening to hate speech from every type of mouth and all types of platforms given ample media attention? Why are arms and drugs the biggest industries?
Why are the rich getting richer and the poor poorer while our planet becomes more bare and parched in one part, and flooded to death, in another? Why is violence of all kinds, inside families and within all communities, a pandemic? Why are medicines, and now even values, a commodity to trade power and privilege with?
Why is nuclear war back on the agenda of consciousness and politics? In short, why do we hate/fear one another one another so much, and so deeply?
Because what ails our multilateral system, in spite of the speeches (and efforts) of political leaders (in and out of electoral times for those fortunate enough to have genuine elections of their national leaders), and now also in spite of the speeches and works of religious actors, is fundamentally the same: each to his own. Multilateral – as an adjective defined by the Oxford Dictionary, where “three or more groups, nations, etc. take part”, is an endangered species.
The United Nations, the premier multilateral entity of 193 governments, is struggling to strengthen multilateralism, yet not necessarily by looking internally at its own behemoth infrastructures, or culture. Ever seen an organogramme of the United Nations system? One should. It is a universe of wonder where every human and non-human thought and action appears to have a dedicated office or structure of some sort.
But before we point fingers at the political multilaterals (who are remarkably good at either ignoring faith communities, or using them to the hilt, or both), we need to ask ourselves, how often do we see or hear of “three or more” religious institutions (not of the same faith) working together to actually deliver needs to diverse peoples around the world?
The answer is, that beyond the speeches, the lavish meetings and innumerable projects, multilateral religious collaboration (where money and efforts from many and diverse are pooled to serve, together, the needs of all, regardless of gender, national, ethnic, racial or religious affiliation) remains rare.
Please do not misunderstand: religious institutions are working to serve hundreds of millions of people on every area of need, humanitarian and development – and now also political. Just as Indigenous Peoples are the original carers of all nature, religious leaders and institutions are the original carers for myriad human needs.
There is plenty of evidence about this. HIV and AIDS, Ebola and the Covid pandemic highlighted how critical religiously managed health infrastructure is to communities – rich and poor. A glance at the education sectors, psycho-social care, migrants and displaced peoples, and other humanitarian areas of need, will show clearly that religious institutions still serve many, widely, and in the remotest areas.
So, it is not a dearth of service to humanity that diverse faith actors need to come to terms with. It is the famine of multireligious collaborative services – as in giving and doing together. At Religions for Peace, for over half a century of supporting interreligious platforms serve the common good in over 95 countries, we live the challenges of multi religious collaboration, on peace mediation, food and human security, migration and displacement, education, gender and women’s empowerment, and trying to save together, the world’s remaining rainforests, through, among other efforts, the Interfaith Rainforest Initiative.
We know that even within the realms of religion, the manner of dealing with these challenges tends to mirror prevailing colonial mindsets, with tendencies to give prominence to one religion, insistence on singular branding, and jockeying for more political influence and financial resourcing.
More and more faith leaders – young and older – are (rightfully) expecting financial remuneration for their time and energies spent in international work, thus slowly but surely reversing a trend of volunteerism that used to uniquely characterise religious service and giving.
Just as governments are failing to systematically work together as inhabitants and leaders of one planet, and just as too many civil society groups and corporations compete for branding and ‘market share’, so too, do religious organisations.
Some religious entities are replicating a secular catastrophic practice of seeking to build other/new/different/more ‘specialised’ entities and initiatives, rather than shoulder the heavy cross of seeking to work together in spite of the damning challenges (both puns intended). In so doing, many of these religious actors are effectively dispersing efforts.
One of the many lessons of failed multilateralism is that more, or different, or new and/or specialised, may well be the well-intentioned road to hell.
When it comes to actually investing in one another’s work so that they are speaking as one and serving together, many religious leaders and leaders of religious organisations will smile, say some nice words, and move on to the next sermon/meeting/international conference, or nevertheless doggedly pursue their own special/unique initiative(s).
Such that we have now so many religious initiatives, dominated by one or a bilateral religious partnership, or two and a half (relatively tokenistic representation of another faith), working on the same challenges, facing all of humanity.
What ails multilateralism is not the absence of resources, tools, values, the clarity of the crisis, or even the will and creativity to serve. Multilateralism fails when some want only their values, truths, communities, nations, cultures, security needs, and/or specific institutions, to prevail.
And with the failure of multilateralism is a failure of common humanity, and planetary survival.
Prof. Azza Karam is Secretary General, Religions for Peace
SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt — U.S. President Joe Biden is coming to international climate talks in Egypt this week with a message that historic American action to fight climate change won’t shift into reverse, as happened twice before when Democrats lost power.
Current and former Biden top climate officials said the vast majority of the summer’s incentive-laden $375 billion climate-and-health spending package — by far the biggest law passed by Congress to fight global warming — was crafted in a way that will make it hard and unpalatable for future Republican Congresses or presidents to reverse it.
Outside experts agree, but say other parts of the Biden climate agenda can be stalled by a Republican Congress and courts.
Twice in the 30-year history of climate negotiations, Democratic administrations helped forged an international agreement, but when they lost the White House, their Republican successors pulled out of those pacts.
And after decades of American promises at past climate summits but little congressional action, the United States for the first time has actual legislation to point to. The climate and health law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, was approved without a single Republican vote, prompting some advocates to worry it may not withstand GOP attacks if Republicans gain control of the House or Senate.
Then Tuesday’s election happened, with a razor-thin contest for control of Congress.
Results are still not quite known, but Democrats showed surprising strength. Sierra Club President Ramon Cruz at the climate summit Wednesday claimed a victory of sorts, saying, “We see in a way that people in the U.S. actually do understand and do support climate action.”
If Republicans grab control of Congress, they won’t have a veto-proof majority, and even if a Republican takes over the White House in the next few years the tax credits will be in place and spur industry, said Samantha Gross, head of climate and energy studies at the centrist Brookings Institution.
“It’s a lot of tax credits and goodies that make it hard to repeal,” Gross said.
At the climate negotiations in Egypt, where Biden arrives Friday, his special climate envoy John Kerry said, “Most of what we’re doing cannot be changed by anyone else who comes to Washington because most of what we do is in the private sector. The marketplace has made its decision to do what we need to do.”
It’s all by design, said Gina McCarthy, who until recently was Biden’s domestic climate czar.
“About 70% of the benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act are about (tax) credits that directly benefit” industries, McCarthy said in an interview with The Associated Press at the climate negotiations.
She said it will be difficult for Republicans to “change the dynamic” to significantly undermine the act. “It is passed, is beneficial. We have Republicans all throughout the country actually doing ribbon cuttings.”
Studies show most of the money, new jobs, are going into Republican states, said climate policy analyst Alden Meyer of the E3G think-tank. McCarthy and Kerry are “largely correct” in claiming the law can’t be rolled back, he said, and Gross agreed.
Several analyses, inside and outside the government, said the law would cut U.S. emissions by 40% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels, which is not quite the official U.S. goal of 50% to 52% cuts by that time.
But McCarthy is saying, wait, there’s more. She said that upcoming but not yet announced carbon pollution regulations and advances by private industries, states and cities will allow the United States to achieve and even exceed that goal, something outside experts are far more skeptical about.
Republicans are likely to push for a sharp increase in oversight of Biden administration policies, including incentives for electric vehicles and loans for clean energy projects such as battery manufacturers, wind and solar farms and production of “clean” hydrogen.
“Republicans are looking for the next Solyndra,’’ said Joseph Brazauskas, a former Trump-era Environmental Protection Agency official, referring to a California solar company that failed soon after receiving more than $500 million in federal aid under the Obama administration.
“Certainly, congressional oversight is likely to ramp up considerably’’ under a GOP-led House or Senate, said Brazauskas, who led the Trump EPA’s congressional relations office and now is a principal with the Bracewell LLP law firm.
Republicans support many of the tax credits approved under the climate law. But they complain Biden is moving too fast to replace gas-engine cars with electric vehicles and say he hasn’t done enough to counter China’s influence in the renewable energy supply chain.
Republicans also are likely to probe EPA actions on climate change, air quality and wetlands, citing a Supreme Court ruling last summer that curbed the EPA’s authority to address climate change, Brazauskas said. The decision, known as West Virginia v. EPA, “has really opened a window for regulatory scrutiny at the agency,” he said.
Democrats say they learned important lessons from the Solyndra episode and don’t intend to repeat past mistakes. The loan program that helped Solyndra turned a profit and generates an estimated $500 million in interest income for the federal government every year.
Even with a Democratic Congress, the Biden Administration couldn’t dramatically increase climate aid to poor nations. The rich countries of the world in 2009 promised $100 billion a year to help poorer nations switch to green energy sources and adapt to a warmer world. T hey haven’t fulfilled that promise, with the United States donating far less than Europe.
That money doesn’t include the hottest topic at the Egyptian climate talks: Loss and damage, meaning reparations for climate-related disasters. The United States is historically the No. 1 carbon polluter, while poorer nations with small carbon emissions bear the brunt of climate disasters, like Pakistan, where devastating flooding submerged a third of the nation and displaced millions of people.
Dozens of protesters called for reparations at a demonstration on Wednesday.
“I think the regulatory agenda is tougher and the international climate finance landscape will be very, very bleak,” Meyer said.
The U.S. government also released a new draft report about what climate change is doing to America, determining that over the past 50 years, the United States has warmed 68% faster than the planet as a whole. Since 1970, the continental U.S. has experienced 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming, well above the average for the planet, according to a draft of the National Climate Assessment, which is the U.S. government’s definitive report on the effects of climate change and represents a range of federal agencies.
The changes in the U.S. reflect a broader global pattern in which land areas and higher latitudes warm faster than the ocean and lower latitudes, the report says.
The effects of human-caused climate change on the United States “are already far-reaching and worsening,’’ the draft report says, but every added amount of warming that can be avoided or delayed will reduce harmful impacts.
The congressionally mandated assessment was last issued under the Trump administration in 2018 and the Biden administration put out a draft of the newer version this week, seeking public comment and peer review. The final report is expected next year.
Risks from accelerating temperatures and precipitation, sea-level rise, climate-fueled extreme weather and other impacts increase as the planet warms, the report says.
“The things Americans value most are at risk,’’ the report says.
A rare November hurricane watch has been posted along Florida’s Atlantic coast. Subtropical storm Nicole is expected to become a hurricane before making landfall in Florida later this week.
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The former New York City mayor and current UN Special Envoy on Climate Ambition and Solutions announced today that his philanthropic organization will work with national and local governments in 25 countries across Africa, Asia, and Latin America to end the use of coal by 2040.
The billionaire made the announcement at the COP27 U.N. Climate Summit in Egypt.
Bloomberg has long been an advocate for clean energy. In 2019, he donated $500 million to a campaign that shut down all coal-fired power plants in the U.S.
“We’ve helped to close more than two-thirds of coal plants in the U.S. and put more than half of Europe’s on track for retirement – and we need to make progress like that all around the world,” Bloomberg said.
His new venture does not have a price tag, but the initiative has two distinct goals.
Working with national and local governments to develop energy transition plans, implement the necessary public policies, and provide the skills and training to accelerate clean energy development and phase out fossil fuel use.
Partnering with the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) to help mobilize the flow of private capital to clean energy transition projects in emerging markets and developing countries.
The problem of coal dependence
Coal is the dominant source of electricity generation in most countries in Africa and Asia. But coal produces more carbon emissions than any other fuel on earth, according to the U.S. Energy Information Associating, leading to poor air quality, health, and climate.
Still, alternative fuel solutions, like wind and solar, are expensive and often out of reach for developing countries.
“Overcoming the hurdles that stand in the way of investment – requires partnership across government, business, and philanthropy,” said Bloomberg. “It also requires technical assistance and economic and policy analysis – the side of energy development that doesn’t get a lot of attention but can mean the difference between investment in coal and clean power.”
Reaching the goals of net-zero emissions requires investment not only from governments but the private sector.
“We need to mobilize significant private capital to clean energy and the responsible accelerated retirement of coal,”said Mark Carney, Co-chair of GFANZ and UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He says the partnership introduced by Bloomberg can “help unlock finance at the scale needed to support the energy transitions of emerging markets and developing economies.”
