With our biggest forum in over ten years, the World Climate Summit - The Investment COP was pleased to welcome a record number of participants, joining us both in-person alongside COP26 at the Hilton Hotel in Glasgow and digitally from around the world. The Summit proved itself as the most important side event of the COP, convening public and private sector leaders who spurred ambitious climate commitments and action to reach 2030 targets and net-zero transitions.
The two days were filled with tangible commitments and transformational action, high-level panel sessions, networking and collaboration.
Key conclusions
This year’s Summit had a focus on creating ambition loops through strong dialogue between public and private sectors to accelerate global climate objectives while adopting and sharing best practices and strategies for catalytic climate action. These will be crucial to reach 2030 climate targets in support of the goals of the Paris Agreement.
We need honest and transparent conversations
We need open dialogue to identify the challenges, we cannot just congratulate each other on what we have achieved. Only through courage and transparency on what is yet to be accomplished can we overcome the barriers together.
The cost of not acting
While long term pledges of trillions of dollars are critical, billions of dollars need to be invested now, aligned with action plans to foster short term action and implementation.
A call for a just transition
It is crucial to achieve a rapid transition to a net-zero economy, but a just transition is equally important. The inclusion of youth, workers and vulnerable communities should be a key focus to ensure that the burden is shared equally.
The importance of cross-sector collaboration
Cross-sector collaboration is imperative in the pursuit of climate goals. It needs to happen across the value chain and across sectors to complement countries’ pledges with those delivered by business, finance, cities and civil society.
Key commitments
World Climate Foundation catalyses ambitious pledges from its partners. As a proud member of the Marrakech Partnership, we encourage and highlight new announcements from investors and businesses for tangible, short term climate action. During World Climate Summit - The Investment COP 2021 we were delighted to act as a platform for our partners’ strong commitments:
The Climate Investment Coalition communicated a collective financial commitment of US$130 billion from Nordic and UK pension funds at COP26, to be invested in clean energy and climate investments by 2030. As part of this commitment, pension funds will also report annually on the progress of their climate investments.
As a contribution North America to the Coalition’s work, the New York City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer shared an announcement on New York pension funds’ commitment to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. This includes a goal to double investments in climate change solutions, such as renewable energy, energy efficiency and green real estate, to over US$8 billion by 2025 and achieve a total of over US$37 billion in climate solutions investments by 2035 across the three funds.
A group of globally leading asset managers, including Zurich Insurance, Asset Management One, MSCI, PGIM, Cathay Financial Holdings and AXA IM announced a range of commitments on achieving net-zero emissions by 2040 and 2050 using science-based targets, with the purpose of cutting emission intensity in the shorter term.
A group of business leaders, including ABB Electrification, O’right, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, Södra, HS1, Capgemini, Neste, Novelis, Landsvirkjun and Sigma Lithium also pledged an ambitious series of commitments that set emission-reduction targets consistent with achieving a net-zero world by no later than 2050 - with some going even further in attaining carbon neutrality across their operations by 2030.
Baltic and Nordic asset managers and finance associations announced their intent to advance short-term action by 2025 and 2030 in support of the Net-Zero Asset Managers Initiative and in line with the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement.
An outcome report with further insights into the conclusions and announcements from World Climate Summit - The Investment COP 2021 will be issued in a few weeks. If you missed out on the event or any of the sessions, the Summit will also be available on demand on the World Climate Summit website soon.
Thank you to all of this year's partners, speakers, and delegates for their valued contribution. We look forward to continuing to build a platform for public and private sectors to meet and jointly set ambition, determine action, and follow up on implementation, in line with the Marrakech Partnership, and with a clear drive towards a net-zero and nature-positive economy.
We hope you will join us at our upcoming events throughout 2022, and we look forward to seeing you at COP27 for the next World Climate Summit - The Investment COP.