In a guest column in the just-published summer edition of Funds Europe, Charlene Cranny, interim chief of operations at the European Sustainable Investment Forum (Eurosif) examines the role of finance in Europe’s ambitions to become carbon neutral.
The year 2020 will ultimately be defined by Covid-19. But it’s also the year the European transition to net-zero became unstoppable. But where is finance in all this?
2019 was an extraordinary year for net-zero emissions commitments. The UK became the first major economy to embed a net-zero target into its legislature and staggering first-mover commitments were made in aviation (International Airlines Group) and oil and gas (Repsol). Other ‘hard-to-abate’ sectors joined from mining (Vale), steel (Thyssenkrupp) and cement (HeidelbergCement) to really challenge what we thought possible. Even so, 2020 will take the title.
This year we have had commitments from three of the seven oil majors: Total, BP and Royal Dutch Shell. Educators Oxford and Harvard made theirs and the European Commission’s European climate law committing the EU27 to net-zero by 2050 has been proposed for approval. The signal that net-zero is inevitable couldn’t be stronger. But, again, where is the finance sector?
The full article may be read here.
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