COP26 coalition worth $130 trillion promises to put climate at heart of finance

Banks, insurers and investors with around $130 trillion or 40% of the world’s capital at their disposal pledged on Wednesday to put limiting climate change at the centre of their work.

An announcement made at the COP26 U.N. climate conference in Scotland commits its signatories to assuming a “fair share” of the effort to wean the world off fossil fuels.

A main aim of the COP26 talks is to secure enough national promises here to cut greenhouse gas emissions – mostly from burning coal, oil and gas – to keep the rise in the global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

But how exactly to meet those pledges, particularly in the developing world — is still being worked out. Above all, it will need a lot of money.

U.N. climate envoy Mark Carney, who assembled the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), put the figure at $100 trillion of investment over the next three decades, and said the finance industry must find ways to raise private money to take the effort far beyond what states alone can do.