Believe it or not, sustainability can be a win-win for the economy and the environment – here’s how
Both morally and financially, the UK can’t afford to miss out on becoming a leading force in the fight against the climate crisis, writes Chuka Umunna
Last Thursday, Mark Carney, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England, fronted his last press conference outlining the bank’s quarterly inflation report. He announced the Monetary Policy Committee’s decision to hold interest rates at 0.75 per cent. Carney, who has been a first-rate governor, is to become the UN’s special envoy on climate action and finance on leaving the bank.
In his new UN role his focus will be on significantly shifting public and private finance markets and mobilising the private sector investment needed to achieve the goal of limiting temperature increases to 1.5C, as set out at the 2015 UN climate change conference in Paris. The prime minister, not wanting to lose out on the action, has also named Carney as his finance adviser for the UN’s 26th climate change conference (COP26) which takes place in Glasgow this November.
Carney has warned that “climate change will affect the value of virtually every financial asset” and the bank will now be stress testing the resilience of the biggest financial services institutions to the physical and transition risks associated with different possible climate scenarios, and the financial system’s exposure to climate-related risk more broadly. Last month, he sided with Greta Thunberg in her clash with President Trump over the urgency of this issue – he said her warnings – that we have only eight years of emitting carbon at the current rate, if there is to be 67 per cent chance of limiting an increase in global temperatures to 1.5C – were right. With regard to the climate emergency, he has said the question for every company, every financial institution, every asset manager, pension fund or insurer is: “what’s your plan?”
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