Barings, has signed the Investor Agenda’s 2021 Global Investor Statement, calling on governments to urgently increase their efforts to address the climate crisis.
The Investor Agenda has been established to provide a common leadership agenda on the climate crisis for the world’s leading investment groups. Its 2021 Global Investor Statement marks the strongest-ever unified call from investors for governments to raise their climate goals and implement meaningful policies. The statement currently contains the collective views of 587 global investors, managing a total of more than US$46 trillion in assets, which accounts for approximately 40 per cent of global assets under management.
All 587 signatories have agreed to a set of policy recommendations that must be implemented swiftly to manage climate risk and channel trillions of dollars to address the climate crisis. The 2021 Global Investor Statement has outlined five priority actions, urging governments to:
Strengthen their NDCs for 2030 before COP26, to align with limiting warming to 1.5-degrees Celsius and ensuring a planned transition to net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
Commit to a domestic mid-century, net-zero emissions target and outline a pathway with ambitious interim targets including clear decarbonisation roadmaps for each carbon-intensive sector.
Implement domestic policies to deliver these targets, incentivise private investments in zero-emissions solutions, and ensure ambitious pre-2030 action through robust carbon pricing, the removal of fossil fuel subsidies by set deadlines, the phase-out of thermal coal-based electricity generation by set deadlines in line with credible 1.5-degrees Celsius temperature pathways, the avoidance of new carbon-intensive infrastructure (e.g. no new coal power plants) and the development of just transition plans for affected workers and communities.
Ensure Covid-19 economic recovery plans support the transition to net-zero emissions and enhance resilience. This includes facilitating investment in zero-emission energy and transport infrastructure, avoiding public investment in new carbon-intensive infrastructure and requiring carbon-intensive companies that receive government support to enact climate change transition plans consistent with the Paris Agreement.
Commit to implementing mandatory climate risk disclosure requirements aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, ensuring comprehensive disclosures that are consistent, comparable, and decision-useful.
Sarah Munday, Director of Sustainability at Barings, says: “We are proud to sign the Investor Agenda’s 2021 Global Investor Statement alongside our peers and collectively call for greater action to address the current climate crisis. As a business, as investors and as individuals, we all have a responsibility to act as quickly and as proactively as possible.
“Barings is committed to pursuing a net-zero emissions, climate resilient and prosperous future. Joining the 2021 Global Investor Statement continues Barings’ efforts to manage climate risk and pursue the enormous investment opportunities in the global net-zero emissions transition.”
The 2021 Global Investor Statement reads: “…we believe that those who set ambitious targets in line with achieving net-zero emissions and implement consistent national climate policies in the short- to medium-term, will become increasingly attractive investment destinations.”
“Full implementation of the Paris Agreement will create significant investment opportunities in clean technologies, green infrastructure and other assets, products and services needed in this new economy.”
