We heard from a varied panel during this Ethical Finance Round Table who delivered their thoughts on COP26, COP27, finance for nature and more, with a series of interesting presentations followed by a lively panel discussion. Click here to watch a recording of the full session now, or click on the names of each of the presenters – Hakima El-Haité, Ashley Hamilton Claxton, Sefton Laing & Jamie Ervin – to see their opening remarks.
Hakima El-Haité, President of Liberal International kicked off by asking how COP26 has succeeded in meeting the hopes of the global south. She emphasised the need to ask ourselves what we achieved and what is next. This COP26 was meant to show progress in CO2 emissions reductions and ambitions for next 5 years and show trust. The developed world was expected to fulfil its promises, and we missed an opportunity to be on the correct side of history, said Hakima.
Ashley Hamilton Claxton, Head of Responsible Investment at Royal London Asset Management followed, and explained that getting commitments from financial sector is easy; action is the hard part. COP26 has inspired more conversations with clients about climate in the past 3 months than RLAM have had in the prior 8 years. Ashley suggested that we need a bottom-up approach (carbon metrics, bonds etc.) but need to develop a high level plan as to how we are going to achieve NZ and the terms of the Glasgow Climate Pact. She cautioned that there is a risk that finance can become a distraction for policy makers – a panacaea for all of our problems around the environment. Finally, she explained that perfect data is a distraction; data will never going to paint a full picture or be complete and can tell a skewed side of a story but is vital for building tools and systems needed post COP and beyond.
Sefton Laing, Senior Climate and Environment Specialist at Baillie Gifford pointed out that COP26 was the first COP at which Big Finance truly arrived. The commitment to trillion dollar funds is a massive step forward, however there is a gap between allocated finance and practical action on the ground – money is not always regulated or properly allocated if you listen to NGOs. He echoed Ashley’s point about the need for strong governance and shifts towards policy to support the individual commitments we have seen particularly from financial services.
Finally, Jamison Ervin of UNDP highlighted 7 trends from the past year on financing nature and 7 predictions for the coming year, looking at how nature has contuined to shoot up the agenda on both climate and finance, and predicting that it will continue to do so.