The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, is known as COP26 as it is the 26th conference. It is scheduled to be held in Glasgow for 12 days in November 2021. Last such meeting was in Madrid in 2019. Our own Secretary of State Alok Sharma will be the President of this conference. Glasgow was chosen because it was awarded the status of Global Green City.
I would not blame you if you are not aware of COP26. Even I have started taking interest only recently.
This is a major opportunity for the UK to showcase its international presence post Brexit. UK has taken a lead in tackling the climate control measures. The UK government has already announced measures towards targeting to reduce carbon emissions to “net zero” by 2050.
I have been attending some webinars on this subject and I feel a several governments and world institutions are now starting to address the problems of climate change. The negative impact of client change has pushed many people in to poverty. According to World Bank estimate 150 m have slipped in to poverty owing to droughts and flooding.
The Lord Mayor of London, William Russell, has taken the initiative in getting City of London, a World financial centre involved in Green Finance. Already Green Sovereign Bonds have having been issued. There are increasing mandatory disclosures for large corporates in their reporting about actions taken to improve environment. The City is looking to share best practice with other countries and help raise the standards. So far dedicated Green finance initiatives have a market capital of $100 m.
The World Bank has several initiatives for Green Finance. It has supported environmental risk screening projects. In 2020, it invested 30% of its investments, around $3.3 bn towards climate change projects. These are aimed at low carbon, climate packages and climate pathways.
Already there are emerging institutional funds specializing is ESG (Environment , Social and Governance) that will have a conscious of improving the environment for generations to come.
This is a great World role for UK to play when we are out of the shadows of Europe. More efforts will be made by governments and multilateral organizations towards climate change. We can look forward to a better world.
