The PRI, leading Arctic scientists, and business and thought leaders, including Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Stiglitz, met in Davos this week to discuss how to tackle the problems presented by climate change.
Key points raised include how to invest more public capital in infrastructure; the critical roles of technology, infrastructure and finance in meeting the climate and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) challenges; and the importance of climate and bending the emissions curve to meet the SDGs.
Mission 2020 convener, Christiana Figueres, emphasised the importance of meeting the SDGs and the Paris Agreement goals on time.
She reiterated the fact that climate change underpins the SDGs; they can’t be fully implemented until climate change is tackled.
Ms Figueres went on to reference some countries that could struggle to meet the SDGs because of climate disasters – such as Puerto Rico, where 85% of infrastructure was decimated overnight by Hurricane Maria.
She then issued an invitation to investors to allocate 1% of their assets under management to clean energy – something she echoed at PRI in Person.
The PRI also co-hosted a pre-Davos climate dialogue with the World Bank, Swiss Government and CDP. Participants included the IFC, government representatives, development banks, companies and Swiss investors.
Key discussion areas included:
- The need to put a price on carbon (over 42 countries have introduced carbon pricing with China and Canada rolling out nationwide plans)
- Climate risk and opportunity, including the World Bank’s recent announcement to cease financing upstream oil and gas firms, and a keynote from Dr Ma Jun on green finance opportunities in China
- TCFD implementation, including fiduciary duty, the need for regulatory support for TCFD and investor use of company disclosures.
