 As a simple writer of cheerful romantic films, it's a very familiar feeling for me to be the least intelligent person in the Zoom. I do feel like I've found myself fat as I am and with no extra training on the starting block of the 100 meters final at the Finance Olympics. And I'm lining up against seven Usain bolts, including Mark Carney, Bill Gates and Rishi Sunak. But I'm still very glad to be here. And I'm gonna try and bring just one more voice into the room, which is that really of ordinary people who don't understand money very well. Because I think we're at an extraordinary moment for how the public are starting to think about their money anew. Let me just whip you through how I came to be here. In 1985, I was in the middle of writing a sitcom called Blackadder when I went to Ethiopia and saw terrible things that no human should suffer. And I came back and we started Red Nose Day and Comic Relief, which was a fundraising thing in which we've so far raised 1.3 billion pounds. And as it were, that was my CSR phase. The sort of when you do small things that you think will specifically help specific people and you're confident about the charity projects that do that. Then part two, I remember having a conversation with Bob Geldof in 2004. And he said that he'd raised more money in a short tea break with President Mitterrand than he had in the whole of Band-Aid and Live Aid. And that moved me and a lot of people into the Make Poverty History campaign and the Live Aid concerts, understanding that politics and governments are where the real money and power are. And that was fighting for the MDGs. But then came the SDGs in 2015, that brilliant roadmap that links climate and poverty and justice together. And part three of my campaigning life was working with a huge number of partners to try and make the SDGs as famous and effective as possible. And incidentally, one of the real successes of the SDGs is their traction with business. In 2005, we couldn't get any business person to talk to us about Make Poverty History. They thought we were dangerous card-carrying communists. But now, we're suddenly at a point where businesses are getting more involved than the SDGs that many governments are. So we come to phase four, as it were. Obviously, I still believe passionately in the work of charities and the importance of government. But suddenly, I see that there's a real generational shift in thinking about how to change the world. I see that my children, particularly and most young people, particularly younger ones, no longer believe that relying on politicians or giving them money to charities is the thing that's gonna change the world. They're saying, what can I actually do in my own life to make a difference? And they're finding the answer to that question in really unexpected places. They're finding in the choices of what they wear, what they eat, how they travel. And I think the big new revelation that they're going to find is that the power to change the world lies in where they invest their money. So we've started a campaign about this, Make My Money Matter, because the issue of people's financial footprint is gonna be a huge part of the new ethical consumer revolution. We've got a little film that I'd like to show you here which shows the first time that it occurs to people that their pensions could be something that could change the world. If we could play that, that'd be great. It actually never occurred to me before that my pension could be something that would create change. That's the dream, yeah. Tell me about it. I would wonder why I hadn't been told about it already. It doesn't sound like it can or should work. I think most people don't know what their pension's investing in. It'd be good to know more about the companies that my pension is being invested in, whether they're doing good in the world. Who are they? Who are they run by? What are they doing? Where are they? What? Invest in these. You're reading this like a list of horror. Making weapons and ammunition, it's a no-go. Cigarette companies, coal mines, oil companies gambling, no way. I feel like something better could be done done with my money. Oh, there you go. That is a stunning list of good things. If my pension went to these things, that would be a wonderful, wonderful thing. Social housing, infrastructure like schools and hospital. I would definitely want my money to be invested in building wind farms, tackling climate change. And companies that treat their work as well. This is my kind of list. And I, as a kind of customer, can feel, first of all, better about where my money is going. But also, you would assume that those pensions would do actually quite well, probably make more money, ultimately. Responsible investing, it's investing in companies which look after their workforce, look after the environment and have a kind of long-term sustainable view about the world and their company. It would make me feel better in some small way that the things that I believe in, the things that I think are important and they're important to me, are being reflected in how my money's being used. I would probably go so far as to say I would increase my pension contributions. Yeah, I'm going to go make some calls and I'll leave here. Now I'm going to run back on my check. Understanding that the money could be working and obviously working to contribute to a better world. That's pretty amazing. This realization about the power of every individual's own money is a huge change that's going to happen with the public. And obviously, it's not only about pensions. Our campaign is focusing on pensions because we're small and we're starting in the UK. But I think that everyone is soon going to start asking these questions about insurance, about banks, about stocks and shares. Now we kicked off a few months ago and there's a real sense of commitment and acceleration on this thing that I never expected. Since our launch in June in the UK, we've seen Nest, Aviva, the BT pension scheme, local government schemes like South Yorkshire and Greater Manchester commit to net zero, which is some 11 million pension pots and 150 billion pounds invested. And we're hoping for more announcements to come. This really is a tipping point moment for the history, for the industry. In just a few months, we've had a range of businesses and NGOs representing tens of thousands of employees, hundreds of millions in pension contributions, sign up to align their company pension schemes with their values from BAFTA to BNB Paribas, Oxfam to WWF. Employers are showing that our pension industry is the new frontier for purpose-led businesses. And on an individual level, we've had a million people viewing our creative content and thousands taking direct action. We're also building a global campaign too, Make My Money Matter Australia, campaigns in the US, Netherlands, Nigeria, Sweden, South Africa, France, Germany and New Zealand. And it's such an interesting campaign because it does operate in so many levels. Politics is still key. And we're looking to governments to accelerate the rate of change in the way pensions work. Really excellent progress has been made so far in the Pensions Bill here in the UK. And through the commitments announced in recent days by the Chancellor. But we still feel it should go further. That's why we believe the UK Pension Schemes Bill should be amended to require all UK pensions to implement next zero and Paris-aligned investment strategies. It's especially urgent now. So the G7 and the G20 and by the time of COP26, all pension funds will be aligned to net zero. And the UK can show itself to be a true global leader. Then there are the pension companies themselves that we're talking to. This is so not a them and us situation. The people inside pension funds and investment businesses find themselves at the center of something hugely important. And this is an extraordinary opportunity for them to take power into their hands and be leaders in accelerating the speed with which we achieve the SDGs. And finally, there's the public at large. Our campaign's job is to show that there's a new and powerful form of protests and progress and activism. Seems an odd one, but it's massive. There's three trillion invested in UK pensions, money which is currently often driving the climate and nature emergency but could be key mover in change. So what we're saying to people is that this is your chance to invest in brilliant businesses working for and with the SDGs, but also don't support things that contradict your own lifestyle. Don't campaign for peace and fund arms. Don't stop your kids smoking and support cigarettes. And don't make daily choices to help the environment in your private life but then actually support fossil fuels with your own invested money. It really is time for people to make their money matter. It's time for pensions with intentions. It's time to be proud of our pensions and what they can achieve in creating a world that we all actually want to retire into and want our children to grow up in. When I first spoke to Mark Carney about all this, he raised all the issues that have held things back. The lack of public knowledge and pressure, the nervousness about whether the returns would be the same and responsible and sustainable investment, the lack of a consistent evaluation framework, legislative problems that affect people when they try and make changes. But what he said to me was, do the campaign anyway because it's like dating. If everyone's waiting for the other person to make the move, nothing's ever gonna happen at the end of the night. And he was right because as you're seeing today, the evaluation systems are being developed. Government is focusing on these things and there's absolute proof that the amount of returns that are coming from sustainable and responsible investments are proving consistently strong. This is no longer a question of money versus morals of value versus values. We can have our sustainable investment cake and eat it too. So the public are coming and they're coming fast and it's an exciting opportunity as it were to change the world without giving up eating hamburgers. When I started Comet Relief, I was sitting in a room with a lot of comedians who are some of the least moral and least financially intelligent people on the planet and we still managed to raise a lot of money. So what I just wanna say as an outsider to all of you taking part today is that you are all in this position of astonishing power and the public need you to take the lead, need you to be brave. It really is my opinion now that the Mandela's and the Steve Beko's and the Ghandis of this generation will be people being radical and brave in business and investment. You have to be the people who do extraordinary and imaginative things. You are at the moment the necessary heroes. So I'd like to end as all mildly intelligent people do with a quote from Shakespeare who got most things right which describes I think exactly where we are. There is a tide in the affairs of men which taken at the flood leads on to fortune omitted all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea we are now afloat and we must take the current where it serves or lose our ventures. I do beg you all to ask the same question that every passionate member of the public and every investor is now going to ask every day what can I actually do and then do it? Let's make money matter in the serious business of living in an excellent world by 2030. The public are coming at you and I know that you will respond with vigor, energy, imagination, product and profit. Thank you all very much. Welcome viewers, my name is Rianne Marie Thomas. I'm the Chief Executive of the Green Finance Institute. One of the proud hosts of this three day festival of ideas, ambition, announcements and action. I do hope you're enjoying the summit and that the discussions are inspiring you to redouble your commitments to driving the transition to a green and sustainable future. It's my absolute privilege to be joined by someone who literally inspired the whole world to take action. Speaking to us from her native Costa Rica, a woman who needs absolutely no introduction, Christiana Figueres, welcome to our Green Horizons Summit. Well, thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me to join you in this non-emission way, which I honestly don't know why it took us this long to figure out that we could actually exchange views without the heavy emissions and the cost. So thanks very much for having me. Well, we're delighted to have you. It's obviously five years since COP 21 in Paris where you played such an instrumental role, bringing governments together to agree to individually and collectively keep the increase in global temperature to below two degrees this century. You describe yourself as a self, as a stubborn optimist. Are you currently optimistic that those commitments will remain under the pressures in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic? Yeah, can I give you two parts of an answer to that? First, I think it's important to understand what I mean or what we in the growing family of stubborn optimists around the world, to which I hope all of you will be a part of that growing family. What do we mean by that? Because we don't mean optimism as the output or the result of having achieved something. That in my book is a celebration and we should celebrate more often than we do. But optimism is very different. Optimism is actually a choice that we make in front of a challenge as an input to a challenge. It is the choice that we make of our attitude or our mindset when we have a major, major issue in front of us. That's different than celebrating something. So I think that we have the responsibility and the opportunity because there's a lot of good here to choose to be optimistic about addressing climate change. I have A, because frankly, we have to address climate change. There's no other option that is morally or economically responsible, but also because so much transformation is already underway. So that's what I mean by optimism and stubborn because of course we're gonna have barriers and challenges along the way, but that doesn't mean that we then sit back in the couch and twiddle our thumbs and go, okay, well then we're gonna give up. We just have to keep on going no matter what happens. So that to my definition of stubborn optimism. And as I said, I hope that by the end of this summit you will all join the growing family of stubborn optimists around the world. But your question also had another part to it, which was, am I optimistic about what is going on? You know, honestly, I am optimistic because there is so much evidence of this transition which we're in and all transitions are messy, but just to first rattle off the very important announcements that we've heard just lately. Certainly in the past let's let me take a timeframe of six months to just a few days ago. So over the last six months we have heard the European Union come forward and say, they understand that their economic recovery from COVID-19 has to be a green and inclusive recovery. And they are focused on a recovery that is gonna create jobs in clean technology sectors. They're also going to make it much more inclusive than previously planned. China came forward about, well, I think it's now about a month ago President Xi Jinping himself in person came forward to say that he is committing China to peaking emissions before 2030. He didn't say by 2030. He said before 2030, very interesting choice there of a word and to be at zero net before 2060 again. Very interesting the choice of words and very interesting that that announcement came before the US election. Frankly, I thought that China was gonna come forward with a very important commitment after the US election but the fact that they chose to do it before is a very strong geopolitical signal that they are not depending on what United States does. No matter what happens in the United States, they're moving forward because they know it's good for their economy and certainly for public health. Now, moving down the line just this week at the beginning of this week, no, sorry, first, if I'm gonna do this in chronological order, we heard from Korea saying that they're going to get to carbon neutrality by 2050 and they're gonna end coal financing and then to crown it all off. This week at the beginning, I think it was Monday, we heard from the Prime Minister of Japan say that they're committing to get to carbon neutrality by 2050, a major shift from where they work just a couple of weeks or months ago. So it's quite exciting that just if you take national government, but we can also go into many other components just from the national government point of view, there is country after country after country that is realizing that this is not about charity. This is not about saving the planet. This is about stabilizing their economy. This is about increasing the resilience of their economies and that's why they're doing it. So we now have basically the lion's share of the G7 plus these major economies in India sorry, major economies in Asia minus India. We haven't heard from India yet, but if the United States election goes to the Biden camp and if we have a Biden administration, then we have the major economies of the world moving forward in unison. And that is pretty impressive. So evidence-based optimism is what I'm hearing, which I think meets both your criteria as both a reason for celebration and a reason for hope. Yes indeed, well identified. You're one set of financial services. There is no other sector that holds more leverage in determining whether by 2030, our emissions will be half of where we are today. This is a conference that is very much focused on mobilizing capital, addressing the financial sector. And we've seen a lot of progress by the private financial sector over the last five years with increasing recognition that climate risk does pose financial risk. Do you agree that message has come through strongly enough? I would say it is coming through. I wouldn't say it has come through strongly enough. I think we're still in the process. But again, there are a lot of evidence to use your good word, a lot of evidence that we're moving in the right direction. And interestingly enough, I think that direction is being given because of the increasing understanding of the risk of not doing so. And so how do I reach that conclusion? Well, let's first understand that climate change has both a physical destruction risk because of the ravages of climate change can literally physically destroy your infrastructure. But also there's value destruction risk because you can have stranded assets quite quickly and we're already beginning to see that happen. So those two risks that have been identified by the task force of climate disclosure, the TCFD has really moved, A, grabbed the attention of the financial sector and moved us in a very important direction. The TCFD started just a few years ago, I think it was 2015, if I'm not, my memory doesn't deceive me, 2015 with a couple of our financial institutions and organizations. Today, there are 1,400 institutions and organizations that are reporting their climate risk. They represent a market capitalization of over $12.6 trillion. Those are the ones that are reporting on their, they're reporting transparently on the climate risk that is embedded in their investments. Now, even more impressive, if you understand that those are the companies and the organizations that are reporting their own risk, even more interesting is if you understand that that is the supply of risk disclosure, even more interesting than the $12.6 trillion, is the demand side of climate risk disclosure because there is about $150 trillion of capital on the demand side wanting to have the information of climate risk that is embedded in companies. That is unheard of. That is from where we started with TSCFD just a few years ago to where we are, that is no longer marginal, that is no longer incremental, that is total exponential growth. Now, furthermore, we know about financial disclosure of risk is mandatory in France, only country where it's mandatory, but there is pretty advanced conversation going on about making it mandatory in many other countries over the next 12 months as we prepare for COP26. On top of that, just staying on the risk side, on top of that, the International Accounting Standards Board has just recently about a week or two weeks ago has recently emitted an opinion saying that climate change risks must be incorporated into financial reporting. So now the ball is in the court of the big four accounting firms because once they understand that opinion from the accounting standards board, they will understand that now their role is to inform the companies that they audit, that they will actually only be able to sign off on financial statements from companies that include the climate change financial risk. So you can see where we are moving with this and what is the biggest lever. Now, on the other side, not of risk, but I think actually also of opportunity. We also have something entitled the asset owner alliance which started again with just a few institutional investors and that is now up to 30 institutional investors with a total investment portfolio of $5 trillion who have come together to say we together are committed to bring our investment portfolio to net zero by 2050. And since it hasn't been done before, they are working in small working groups to figure out how they are going to do that, to develop protocols and standards for how to move investment portfolios from wherever they are now to investment portfolios of net zero by 2050. And I could go on and on down the list because the financial sector is moving very definitively. Is it moving fast enough? Frankly, I don't think anyone is moving fast enough and we are totally running out of time, but there is very concrete evidence of the financial sector understanding the risk and moving toward the opportunities of clean technology, clean energy, regenerated soil opportunities for investment and for lending. I really, well, for one thing, isn't it fantastic that there is a list of these different initiatives that we could spend all afternoon discussing? But I did want to pick up on that last point about mobilizing private capital more quickly and at greater scale into net zero solutions. And there is a role there, a specific role for government policies and actions. And what actions taken by governments do you feel could speed up that mobilization of capital at scale? Well, one I've already mentioned, which is to make financial risk disclosure mandatory. That just goes to the heart of the matter very, very quickly. And as I say, there is a conversation among quite a few countries to make it mandatory as it is in France has been for several years and be able to take that to COP26 next year. So that is a very direct intervention on the part of governments. The other one, of course, would be to finally decide on a global price of carbon or at least on rules for the carbon market. And that has been a leftover, I would call it, a leftover from the Paris Agreement that was the main issue that was not agreed. Everything else was agreed, at least at top level. And we've been going into much more granularity on all of those agreements, but on the carbon market and on a price for carbon, we haven't been able to go into granularity because the big overall this agreement has not been reached and we've been dragging that decision for five years. And hence the carbon market is pretty depressed. I mean, those jurisdictions that have a price on carbon, either through a tax or a cap and trade are definitely still moving forward and they're trading with each other, et cetera, et cetera. So it's not like it's dead, but it doesn't have the vibrancy that it could and should. And so unsurprisingly, there is another initiative going on to be able to move on that issue also by COP26, either for a global agreement or perhaps even for a coalition of willing countries or willing governments that are willing to move forward even in the absence of a global decision. Those to me are one on the risk and the other on pricing pollution, basically, I think are the two highest impact measures that governments can take. And we mentioned COP26, obviously it was meant to be taking part this very week. And obviously this summit is a key milestone on that road to COP26 in Glasgow next year. So if we were to be sitting here this time in next year, post the COP26, what do you hope we would be able to be saying? Aha, you're inviting me to crystal ball here. Well, you know, anytime you crystal ball, you run the danger of it just breaking in front of your feet. So it's a very dangerous question that you're asking me, but let's put out a couple of things. First of all, let's understand that COP26 or all COPs, especially since COP21 in 2015, actually are both moments for governments to come together and take global decisions. But they're also what I would call forcing moments for all other stakeholders, private sector, insurance companies, financial sector, civil society, to come together to crown or solidify or land initiatives that they have been contemplating. So it's both a moment for governments as well as a moment for non-governmental or not central governmental initiatives. On the government side, I can't hide my hope and my wish for a carbon market. It's been a long time coming. I think all countries would be benefited by it. I spent many years of my much younger life in the carbon market and I am a market believer. I know not everyone is. I definitely agree that there are many improvements that can be made to what used to be the CDM, the previous carbon market. Everything always benefits from improvement, but I don't think not having a vibrant market is an improvement over what we had in the CDM. And so I would actually argue for the lessons learned there and to come out of COP26 with a governmental decision to revitalize, revamp, reset, reinvent the carbon market. So that would be my wish. It's not a crystal ball. It's a wish that that would be the case. Secondly, what is scheduled for COP26 is what we call the first round of the global stock take. And what that means is 2015 plus five is 2020. We should have had COP26 this year. It's been delayed, but it doesn't mean that the tasks that were assigned to COP26 fall out. The task that is assigned to COP26 primarily is what we call the global stock take, which is the feature in the Paris Agreement that every year countries will, every five years, sorry, every five years, countries will come together or the governments of countries will come together to review what they have done with respect to their previous registered ambition five years before and then be able to increase their ambition for the next five years. And every five years there will be a global stock take because we will take stock of what has been done. So COP26 is the first global stock take and my prediction there, this is I think more than a wish, my prediction is that we're on pretty good path toward that with the announcements that I've just shared because those will be harvested next year at COP26 and they will probably be taken down to more short and medium term targets than only the 2050 target that all of these countries have announced. That is important because that is a very important feature of the Paris Agreement that we realized in 2015 that whatever countries registered in 2015 was definitely not gonna get us to well below two or let alone 1.5 degrees as maximum temperature increase. We knew that. And that's why the Paris Agreement is structured in these five year periodicity or five year cycles at which every five years countries come, take a look at what they've done and increase their ambition. So the Paris Agreement is not a static, it is a moving agreement structure that moves with the decarbonization of the global economy across several decades until we can get to zero net, hopefully even before then 2050. So that global stock take is absolutely key for the credibility of the Paris Agreement but more importantly than that, it's absolutely key for all of us to know, are we progressing or are we walking back or are we standing still? That's the point of the global stock take and that will happen next year. Well, on that note of optimism, I'm afraid we're gonna have to bring our conversation to an end. It just leaves me to thank you very much for sharing your insights. Thank you so much for your leadership and thank you so much for joining us at the Green Horizon Summit. Thank you very much and enjoy the summit. Good afternoon. With me now is Noel Quinn, the Group Chief Executive of HSBC Holdings. And we have this afternoon had a most amazing series of discussions. We have heard yesterday from Mark Carney's private finance strategy for looking forward to COP26. We've heard from Christina Fugueras today who's encouraging us all in this direction. We've heard from the report from the Task Force for Scaling Voluntary Carbon Markets, which has enormous potential, all of which involve private banks and private finance in the private sector. So it is a note. It's great to have you answering some interesting questions around where banks can really contribute on this agenda. And I think the first question I had was to HSBC. You made some very ambitious climate commitments. Can you talk about some of the commercial rationale to this and some of the thinking behind it? Yeah, sure. I'm very happy to do so. Roger, I think everyone in this room when everybody on this conference will acknowledge that doing the right thing by the environment is just morally the right thing to do. But I see it also as a commercial opportunity. I see significant growth opportunity in putting the organization forward as a leader in sustainable and sustainability. Why do I say that? Our clients themselves recognize how important it is that they transition their business models and their activities to be consistent with the Paris Accord. As a consequence, they're demanding of us as finance providers finance to help them on their transition pathways. Now, we believe in one of the statements we've made just a few weeks ago, that financing will require of HSBC in the order of 750 billion to a trillion of additional financing over the next 10 years. And that's the sort of commitment we're making. So it's a commercial opportunity as well as being the right thing to do. We believe that our clients will want to unlock the potential in natural capital, in developing new business models to tap into the opportunity that nature itself provides and providing nature solutions. And we believe that each of our clients that are involved in the more difficult sectors are going to want to transition their business models and to do so will require investment in capital and infrastructure. And we as a finance provider should be part of that journey. But we also see opportunities in the personal sector. We think our personal customers are going to seek investment opportunities that align to their own personal ambitions on the environment. And therefore in wealth and asset management, we see significant growth opportunity there as well. Thank you. I mean, there has been, inevitably, with all new revolutions that come around and I do see this green finance, green technology as something of a revolution, not least because of the way that energy is becoming so much more available and so renewable energy becomes so much cheaper and more effective by comparison with the kind of existing fossil fuel sources. Of course, those who question the movement will say that this is a fad and they're like, oh, fads, it'll fade with time. It doesn't feel like that to me as a banker, but what's your view on that? I agree with you, I don't think this is a fad. I think this is the way industries evolve over time. And I think we're going through one of those tipping points over the next few years where industries will transition to new technologies. Formulate new business models and what we as bankers have to do is to be with them on that journey. We need to reskill ourselves to understand the new and emerging technologies that will take the place of some of the old technologies of the past few decades. We need to equip ourselves with the skills to help advise our clients on some of their new business models and how they should fund those new business models through a combination of whether it's private financing through the finance sector, the banking sector, its equity, its government support grants or it's the more multinational development institutions and advising them on that journey is part and parcel of what we need to do. But I think it's with us, this isn't a fad. We're gonna have to learn new ways of conducting industrial activity in a way that's supported by the environment. Yes. It seems obvious to say it, but the more obvious renewable energy companies or those companies that are already transiting to a renewable energy background, they are clearly, to us they feel on the right path, they're easier to finance, they're easier to invest in. There are traditional industries around cement and steel, shipping if you like, where it's much harder and the question for us has been and I imagine it's the same for you, how do we support those clients best through this transition period? How long should we give them? Shipping is a typically a 20, 30, even 40 a cycle on ships. So how do we best do that as bankers? But I think those more traditional industries are going to have to import new technology into their business model. So I think it's gonna be a combination of helping them transition off some of their old technologies and their old methodologies for whether it's power or energy consumption and help them identify new ways that they can serve their clients by importing new technological capabilities that currently they don't have today. And you say actually it's easier to finance the new technology than it is the old. On one hand it is, from an environmental acceptability point of view it's easier to finance some of the new technologies when solar. But from a business case point of view some of those new technologies bring increased risks in a financing model because they're unproven. The offtake agreements have potential for change. The government support that has been there is less predictable. So on the one hand they're easier from a reputational risk point of view. On the other hand they're more challenging. And that's really where we as an industry of financial services sector have got to help our people, help our clients navigate that path. But I think for me the old industries that are heavy carbon producers today they themselves are going to be transitioning their business models with new and emerging technologies so that they themselves are sustainable for the long term. Now we have a choice as an industry do we walk away from them and say we'll no longer bank them or do we walk towards them and say we'll help them finance their business their new and emerging business model we'll help them on that transition journey. And as a client-led organization I'd rather work with our clients on the journey than there are rather than just walk away from them. Yes. That's my personal view. Yes, I fully concur. I think for us as bankers one of the most exciting things will be that when we can affect our capital weightings according to climate risk and certainly going through the climate risk adjusted credit process is in any bank quite a conundrum. We've created these fantastic credit systems which are wonderfully, we have risk weightings we have very well worked out ways of applying both return and capital to those risk weightings. And here we are saying well we'd like to bring climate into that as well and start to affect positively or negatively the capital weightings that we have. Now for us and I'm sure for most banks this is a lot of work and it's the bigger bank I suspect the larger the ship, the harder it is to turn around. So I wondered whether you had a thought about how we make this credit process more climate adjusted, how we bring that in and also is the data good enough yet? Do you find that you have enough on your clients? Firstly the data is not good enough at the moment because there's a series of questions that we need to start asking on a go forward basis that haven't historically been asked and the answers to those questions aren't embedded in our historic risk models. And we therefore need to update our data, have more in-depth conversations with our clients on a one by one basis so that we understand their transition path and their business plans. And then we can incorporate that information into our risk models. But I think there's quite a journey for us all to go on and I think we'd be falling ourselves if we said we were far enough down that path at the moment. So we've got to involve those historic risk models to take in this new source of information. I think there is also another thing to watch out for and that is the old industries have got to import new information about environmental risks. The new industries and the new technologies and the new business models are going to score high on an environmental basis when you look at those risk models but they may score less well from a credit loss point of view. And if you just look back at wind and solar there have been some tremendous successes but there have been some tremendous failures as well. The risk for the industry as a whole is actually you get two hits both happening at the same time in that transition period. You get hit on the environmental risk on your existing industries and your existing debt but also you carry a load in on the new businesses that you're investing in not from an environmental point of view but from a credit risk point of view. And I think what we have to have is really proactive and engaged dialogue with the regulators to make sure we don't get a double hit on the new and on the old because that can actually be very penal for the financial services sector. It can discourage investment in new business models and it can discourage investment in the existing business models. And if you wanna participate in both and help both for the future you're in danger of being hit twice. No, I think you're currently I'm currently sitting in the city of London as you can see from the backdrop to the mansion house behind me. I think you're sitting in a part of the world where you see this is very strong out in Asia. And I wanted to ask you I'm fascinated by the differences in between different regions. How important is the climate agenda in the region not just in China which of course is now committed to net zero by 2060. Do you feel it's common amongst most countries you're dealing in? Or is it specific to certain who may be taking more commercial? It's a common agenda for all and we recently conducted a survey of our clients and 90% of our clients confirmed that a very high priority for them is how they transition their business over time to be much more environmentally sustainable. And that includes Asia. And I was really pleased to see the commitment from China recently and similar commitments from Japan and South Korea but I think this is an agenda that's global and certainly across Asia. So our commitment is to help our clients. We will do everything we can to help them on this journey. One would argue it's more important for Asia to be on this journey than anywhere else in the world. Given the economic growth has taken place given the infrastructure investment that is real and live now and over the next decade it's important that we fund that investment in infrastructure in a sustainable way and that the infrastructure investment is going into projects that will be good for the next 30 to 40, 50 years from an environmental point of view and we don't create trapped carbon. And that's one of the things that I'm pleased to be part of here in Asia and why we HSBC made a very firm commitment to be net zero by 2050. In China in particular, there's obviously a very strong commercial drive to their investments in solar and wind and other renewables and therefore the rhetoric which accompanies that is clearly has been very strong. I must say my dealings with the Green Finance Committee where we have a joint task force of the Green Finance Initiative here in London at the Green Finance Institute. The Green Finance Committee has persuaded me that actually they're not only very genuine but they're very determined in their drive to bring institutions in particularly around the green investment principles of the Belt and Road which has been really a very, it's caught the imagination very strongly. Is it also your view that China's been strong in this? Totally, one thing that I've learned over the many years is when China sets its mind to an objective and it has done on sustainability, it will mobilize all of its capabilities to achieve that objective. And I've seen evidence from the businesses that I've visited over the years I've been in Asia where they've been on a journey of improving the sustainability and the environmental impact for quite some time now. They've firmed up their commitment for the future but they've been on this journey for a while. So I visit, I'm fully aware of the move away from coal that they're trying to take forward and move towards gas as a source of energy, wind and solar. I've been around the steel plants that are transitioning their own capabilities to be more efficient. I've been around the solar and production lines and the way that they're gearing up for that. So I'm absolutely convinced that China is 100% committed to this agenda and it will mobilize and we as a sector need to be on that journey with them. That is also exactly my experience. And let's see what happens going forwards because it's certainly China's gonna be a major player and it's a very exciting time to be engaging in that discussion. So far now we've talked mostly about the private sector which is clearly going to be very important to this. I'm very interested in your views also on what you mentioned earlier on the multinational development banks and governments actually stimulating sustainable investments. A lot of rhetoric, a lot of very, very strong language around the need for change and the need to build in a better way. Many countries are using build back better and I think it's a phrase now, it's become a bit of a cliché. But I wonder what your view on the role of the multinational development banks was in particular? Well, I think if you just look at the amount of financing that needs to be done over the next couple of decades, it's huge. No one institution, no one source of investment can meet all of that demand. So there's a role for government, there's a role for multinational development banks and there's a role for the private sector, private sector debt, private sector equity. And I think what you've gotta have is a blend of financing to meet the demand that's gonna be there for the future. And that financing, those financing sources are gonna have different risk appetites. So that's the one thing I think that needs to be a collaborative effort. The other thing that we need to do is improve standards. Standards of and verification of individual projects. And I think collectively governments and the multinational institutions need to work with the private sector to have a clear understanding of what is good environmental financing, sustainable financing and what is not good. And I think collectively we need to agree those standards and agree on a methodology for verifying those standards. Because I think if you have that benchmark well-established, funding will follow. Private investors will follow with their assets into the funds that can give them confidence. These are sustainable funds. So I think development of standards, getting those accepted, getting a methodology for verification is critical as well for governments and all institutions that are participating. Absolutely, and that will certainly help the whole credit process as well enormously for us as well as accelerating the market. I want to delve a little bit further into the multinational development banks because these triple A institutions clearly have a mandate to help develop projects and to help develop communities and societies in that particular area of the world. I wonder whether if they were triple B, they might take a bit more first loss currency and political risk. And I wonder whether you had a view on whether they could be given a broader mandate by governments to do even more than they do. I think there is a place for that because I think in the early days particularly as projects and initiatives are developing, there is the potential for a gap in the market where the private sector aren't yet ready to meet the top end go fully up to the top end that the multinationals are willing to fill. And I think there is a risk of a gap in financing being there where the risk profile of the private sector and the risk profile of the government will open up a gap in financing. And I think for a period of time, there may be a need to fill that gap. Good, I would certainly agree with that, which I've been vocal on. I would love to see the MDBs doing even more. Certainly they're mandated by governments to be given a broader scope, which is not an easy thing to do, but it would be great to see. No, I'm afraid we're coming towards the end of our 20 minutes, but I wanted to ask you, we bank as financial institutions, what can we do in the run-up to COP26? Where can we play our greatest role, do you think, in terms of developing this conversation? Well, I think we've got a number of things we can do. We have a responsibility for each of our institutions to reskill our teams, to build new capabilities and build new products. We have to help our colleagues understand how to risk assess the current business models and how to risk assess the future technologies and the future business models. That is on each of our shoulders. Collectively, I think we as an industry need to help the formation of appropriate standards so that we can adequately assess individual business models and individual industries. We need to also build transparency in the disclosure of our activity. The worst thing that we can be accused of is sort of greenwashing. None of us want to be there. And to avoid the risk of greenwashing, we need to build collectively for the industry acceptable reporting standards that have credibility that are verifiable. And that everyone that's looking into the financial services sector will say, I understand exactly where that institution is and how well they're progressing on their commitments for sustainability. So there's some thoughts of what I think we can and should do. No, Quinn, group chief executive HSBC Holdings. Thank you very much indeed. Very insightful. Thank you. Thank you, Roger. All the best. Hello, everyone. Thanks for inviting me to close out what I'm sure has been a very productive discussion. We know what we have to do. Right now, every year the world emits roughly 51 billion tons of greenhouse gases. We need to get that to zero in the next few decades. That'll take many new technologies, new policies and new markets for low carbon solutions. None of it will be easy. Greenhouse gases are a byproduct of many parts of the modern economy. The electricity that powers our lives, the transportation that gets us from place to place, the food we eat, the buildings we live and work in and the objects we use every day. There are emissions in almost every physical process and we'll have to tackle them all to get to zero. There is good news that many people around the world see the urgency of the crisis and understand the need to act quickly. It's been especially great to see this momentum in the financial services sector over the last five years. As more and more companies think about climate impacts and work to decarbonize their business models, we'll push closer and closer to that zero emissions goals. Companies, investors and shareholders can play a pivotal role in this transition by mobilizing capital toward the technologies and businesses we need to build the net zero future. A key is whether clean finance is actually at a lower rate than normal finance and making sure that we're only assigning credit when it's done in a special way, taking unique risk including backing innovations. We need to finance the transition but bringing down the cost of that is where we should assign credit. We also need to invent and deploy new technologies that will transform the way we make key elements. For example, making fuels without carbon for heavy transport, making steel without carbon, making cement without carbon, and finally carbon removal technology so that we can offset any of the emissions that innovation doesn't get rid of. This all will be very difficult. If we look back at the journey of successful climate technologies like wind power, solar electric, we see that it took decades to get to the point where the costs were the same as the previous approach. And so you had to get scale that was subsidized to get that learning curve going. Now we can't wait decades for all of these inventions. We need to accelerate the innovation cycle. So we need to invest now even in technologies that still have a premium price and get volume so that with scale that premium price comes down. We need a creative approach to this, including new metrics and new public-private partnerships to catalyze these volumes that will get us the same reduction in cost that we've seen with other technologies. Investors who are willing to spend capital for their offset money to drive this scale, that's what is super important. We need leading companies to make procurement commitments that provide sources of revenue for these low-carbon products even when they come at an extra cost, which we call the green premium. So it means taking on risk, it means funding, procurement, even at the early stage of technologies. Those who take these steps now will not only help the world avoid climate disaster, they'll position themselves for success in this new world. They'll be the best equipped to finance, produce, and buy the clean solutions that will underpin our future economy. Obviously that's a lot to do across many different sectors. That's one reason why I'm putting even more of my time into supporting these innovation bootstraps to make the climate transition. I launched Breakthrough Energy in 2015 to help encourage the private sector to be more ambitious about tackling climate change. One effort was the creation of a venture capital group called Breakthrough Energy Ventures that did a first billion dollar fund is now doing a second fund and it's building a network of investment vehicles and advocacy approaches to smooth the path to get to that net zero by 2050. We have a long road ahead of us, but I'm confident if we work together to support innovation, we will get this done. So let's go to work. Thank you. Hello everyone. It is a pleasure to be with you all today. I would like to thank the Lord Mayor of the City of London, William Russell and my friend Mark Carney for the kind invitation to join this summit. And I applaud the City of London Corporation and the Green Finance Institute for pressing on with this event, despite the obvious difficulties and circumstances of this year. I would like to also like to thank Alok Sharma, COP26 President and Secretary of the State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for his leadership ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow next year. I look forward to partnering with you and your government as well as the government of Scotland as the UK prepares to host this important summit at such an important time for the entire world. The unfortunate reality is that climate change isn't slowing down because of the global pandemic. As investors, we need to be addressing both crises with urgency. And I welcome the announcement yesterday by Chancellor Rishi Sundank that the UK will issue its first green gilts next year. We see clear demand for such assets from investors worldwide. And other speakers have pointed out the ambition towards a climate resilient net carbon, net zero carbon economy is accelerated as we head into COP26 next year. We believe the financial community has a critical role to play in driving this transition. And that includes asset managers like BlackRock. You often hear our industry talking about credit risk, liquidity risk and emerging markets risk. And in recent years, our industry has come slowly around to understand how climate risk is also investment risk. We see these risks in a variety of ways. Physical impact, transition risk and the negative impact on climate change on global growth. This escalating risk cannot be ignored. Investors who are agnostic to climate change are making an active bet, a highly risky one. As fiduciaries that invest other people's money, we have an obligation to understand that to help our clients navigate climate risk in their investment portfolios. Growing awareness of climate risk as an investment risk is driving a tectonic shift in capital and with it asset valuations. Consider for example, that net flows or that reallocation of asset owners capital into sustainable investment strategy is up over 275% in the nine months to September compared to all the last year. The investment industry now has the opportunity to further accelerate this phenomenon and demonstrate that we could be a catalyst for change. We can help bridge the financing gap, supporting the reallocation of flows towards sustainable development. For us at BlackRock, this means doing a number of things. First it means to fully integrate sustainability related risk analytics into all our active investment processes. This means that at the portfolio level, our portfolio managers are accountable for approximately managing all exposures to sustainability related risk and documenting how those considerations have affected investment decisions. BlackRock has on track to reach that goal we set in January to have 100% of our active portfolio teams ESG integrated by year end. Second, we are working to democratize access to sustainable investing by making it easier for our clients to go sustainable. This year alone, we've learned over 50 new sustainable strategies, including index mutual funds, fixed income products, active equities and ETFs so that all people can have low cost, easy access to diversified sustainable funds. We're also moving to make sustainable building blocks the standard offering in all our solutions and all our models. BlackRock is investing billions in renewable power and will be extending our renewable investment capabilities to emerging markets in 2021. Along with Oxford University Endowment Management, we are announcing today the development of a fund to help realize their commitment to divest from fossil fuels. We're also working with one of the largest states in the United States to do the same with their pension fund. A little over a month ago, we launched a climate transition fund with Scottish widows serving their two million pension scheme members in the UK. Third, we are investing in data and analytics necessary to help our clients and our investors understand climate risk, how it affects our investments. Climates often tell us that one of the biggest challenges they face in sustainable investing is a quality and availability of good data and climate risk analytics. And we have recently partnered with Rodeum to build a technology that measures the physical risk of climate change in ways that the investment industry has never done before. Better data and analytics will help more investors account for these risks in their investments they're making and it will deepen the world's understanding of climate change's vast impact on our economy and the global economy. Fourth, we have also wrapped up our engagement with companies on sustainable related risks. Most keenly focused on companies that face material financial risk in the transition to a low carbon economy. In January, BlackRock asked companies to publish SASB and TCFD aligned disclosures to provide a better view into ESG risk factors. Since that call for increased transparency, we have witnessed a dramatic increase in companies filing disclosures aligned to those two standards. In the case of TCFD, for example, we've seen a 400% increase in reporting. These standards help investors understand how companies are gonna be going to meet the goals that a majority of the world's government, including the United Kingdom, has committed. Namely the goal of net carbon, zero net carbon emissions by 2050 because we are taking a long-term approach and take the time to actually engage with more companies than any other firm in our industry. We may sometimes give companies more time to make changes than some other people would like. We will support the management of companies that are making progress and addressing climate risk, but at companies that are not, we will vote against their directors. We will support shareholders' proposals that will increase long-term value. For example, since the main proxy season ended in June, there has been eight climate and other environmental proposals on corporate proxies. BlackRock's corporate stewardship team has supported seven of those proposals that would create long-term value for our clients invested in those companies. As we continue to advance our stewardship efforts, accelerating progress on strong standardized disclosures will be essential. Here in the UK, we've urged the government and the FCA to go further and introduce mandatory TCFD reporting for all issuers as soon as the next year. And so we welcome the UK's Chancellor's announcement yesterday mandatory with a mandating TCFD reporting. The United States, for its part, should move faster so that we can achieve greater global coordination. The SEC can require a clear standardized climate at risk information from companies consistent with the TCFD. The Department of Labor can make it easier, not harder for fiduciaries like BlackRock to integrate sustainability into our investment strategies. And for the Federal Reserve and central banks globally should use a template that Mark and others have pioneered to bring climate risk into their prudential and supervisory oversight processes. As companies accelerate, it will be even more critical that we can achieve global convergence. And with the goal of establishing a globally recognized and adopted approach to sustainable related disclosure. We've been reminded in 2020 that sustainability is much more than dealing with the effect of climate change. The tremendous toll of COVID-19 crisis on health, economic wellbeing, and everyone's daily activity has precipitated a widespread reassessment of the way and how we live our lives every day. For governments, for businesses, for consumers, and for investors, things have to change very quickly. We've seen this virus has disproportionate effects on different segments of the population around the world. The financial consequences of the pandemic has exasperated and exposed greater income inequality while people in minority ethnic communities have been found to be at greater risk of suffering the effects of COVID. These significant issues that will have a long-term consequences for our society. Yet we have seen that regardless of industries or companies with strong sustainability characteristics, companies focused on all other stakeholders have weathered the crisis more effectively. Knowing this, what's the best way forward for financial firms and asset managers? Asset managers have to play a role in playing to helping make the global economy more resilient, more transparent, and a lot more efficient. We have a role to play in making capitalism work for more people. These are several avenues for us to do this. The first is for making and making investing available for more people. We live in a world where the benefits of financial markets are not evenly shared. And we have a real opportunity to address barriers to access and participation in financial markets for individuals. Second, we must make sure that companies focus on the long-term operating sustainability and serve all of their stakeholders addressing issues like diversity, fair treatment of workers in their supply chains, and climate preparedness. And third, we must accelerate sustainable investments to help create a resilient net zero economy. We are 12 months away from COP26. Asset matters must play an active role in engaging with companies, engaging with governments, and the public to help accelerate this transition to a climate resilient future. It's better for our clients, better for the planet, better for the resilience of the economy, and gosh, better for individual companies as they manage their own risk. Individuals gathered here today are making these aspirations a reality. It is a real privilege to be part of this work, and I truly wanna thank you for the opportunity to speak today. Good afternoon, and thank you to the Lord Mayor for organizing this event. We last shared a platform at the Guild Hall in February for the launch of the COP26 private finance agenda. And it was during the first two weeks in my role as business secretary and COP26 president-designate. Well, we were living in a very different world then. As I speak to you during the first week of our new national restrictions, we know all too well the damage that coronavirus pandemic has caused, both human and economic. But though our circumstances have changed immeasurably, the challenge I set out when I spoke to the financial sector in February remains the same. There is an urgent need to raise global ambition in reducing our emissions, building climate resilience, and reaching a net zero global economy. And finance has a pivotal role to play. It would increase green global investment from the billions to the trillions all finance must align with the Paris Agreement. As someone who previously worked in finance, I'm really proud to say that this sector is rising to the challenge. Since I spoke to you in February, major financial institutions have come forward with ambitious commitments. This week, MNG PLC committed to become net zero by 2050. Over the past two months, the likes of HSBC, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley have made similar commitments. Whilst in October, the BT pension scheme announced that it will reach net zero by 2035. The net zero asset owners alliance includes some of the world's largest pension funds and insurers, and now represents over $5 trillion in assets, up $1 trillion from last year. And today, the UK government has endorsed proposals from the IFRS Foundation to develop global sustainability standards, helping to achieve consistency across the world. We've come a long way, particularly in the past year, but we know there is more to do. The next decade is absolutely critical. Avoiding the worst effects of climate change means rapid decarbonisation and increased resilience. To remain in line with the Paris Agreement, we must reduce our emissions up to five times quicker over the next 10 years than we have over the past 20. We must finance the transition to net zero before it is too late. That is why we're making international finance a central theme of our COP presidency. Last year, the Prime Minister announced that the UK would double its international climate finance commitment to £11.6 billion between 2021 and 2025. And on the 12th of December, the UK will, alongside the UN and France, co-host an ambition summit in partnership with Italy and Chile. We're calling on countries to come forward with new commitments on finance. So together, we can meet and exceed the global goal of mobilising $100 billion a year for developing countries. And in the run-up to COP26, we also want more companies to disclose climate risk in their financial reporting. Yesterday, the chancellor announced our plan to achieve widespread mandatory TCFD reporting by 2023. This is a major step forward for transparency of the largest UK companies, financial institutions and pension funds. And we want to see more commitments ahead of COP26 that reflect the urgency of the situation we face, commitments that change the future of financial flows and that actively support the transition to zero emissions. So I leave you with one message. Join the race to zero. Commit to net zero by 2050 at the latest and publish a clear plan for how to get there. Please do it now, because we do not have time to waste. Together, with your knowledge and expertise, we can finance the move to our green global future. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the City of London and our partners, the Green Finance Institute and the World Economic Forum, thank you for joining us these past two days. It has been a pleasure to host you all here from the Mansion House. I must also thank our sponsors for all they have done to support the summit, to our Platinum sponsors, Barclays and 91, to our Gold sponsors, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Refinitiv and Standard Chartered and to our Silver sponsors, Bank of China, CME Group, DLA Piper, EY and the Government of Guernsey. If you've not had a chance, I highly recommend visiting their booths before the summit closes to learn how their businesses are forging ahead in the sustainable finance space. Well, what a summit it has been. It is beyond doubt that we are fast approaching a world in which every financial decision will take climate change into account. And it is abundantly clear that financing the transition to a net-zero future is the future of financial services and the future of London as a global financial hub. As we have heard, it is clear how finance can scale to accelerate the net-zero transition. We know from the Chancellor, from James Shaw, from Drosch Freidenberg, from Minister Le Hoot and others that policymakers will continue to raise the bar, set the terms of the new economy and provide the clear forward-looking targets necessary for investments. We know from Mark Carney that every financial institution, every actor across the investment value chain has a clear role to play in accelerating investment for a net-zero future. And to hear more about Mark's views on the state of the market, climate crisis and much more, do listen out for his wreath lectures on BBC Radio 4 next month. We know from Andrew Bailey, from Nihil Rathi, from Sarah Breeden that financiers and regulators have developed the necessary tools to price and account for climate risk. We know from Mike Bloomberg, Larry Fink, Noel Quinn and Bill Winters that financial institutions are finding new opportunities in the transition. They are entering and opening new markets to deliver a net-zero future. And we know from Ria Marie Thomas and the Green Finance Institute that sectoral policy and financial innovation can be joined together to align pools of capital with unfinanced decarbonisation needs. We are truly unleashing the power of financial markets to do good and to deliver the net-zero and climate-resilient future that we all aspire to. This is only the beginning. We, as the financial services industry, have a clear strategy to deliver net-zero. We must now shift into execution. There are four things every financial institution must do. Firstly, disclose their exposure to climate-related financial risk and the financial implications of this. Secondly, set clear long-term decarbonisation targets for their balance sheets and portfolios. Thirdly, routinely publish credible plans that set out time-bound actions to navigate and prosper through the transition. And finally, act in response to climate-related risk by proactively reallocating capital towards transition-positive opportunities. Advisors should heed this direction of travel, too. Investment consultants and proxy voting providers can no longer sit on the fence. There is a right and wrong side of history to this transition. For governments, our message is simple. Capital is moving at an unprecedented rate to align with the net-zero future in response to a clear-eyed understanding of risk. Capital is also mobile. Jurisdictions that set out sector-specific transition pathways backed by stable and transparent investment environments stand to gain. Those that act less swiftly may not. I hope that the Green Horizon Summit has inspired each of you to re-examine what you can do to speed the transition. Together, we can create an everlasting cycle of innovation and investment for net-zero. We can make this change a reality, and the first steps have already been taken. The Green Horizon Summit marks the start of a year-long program that ends with concrete action from private finance at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. That action must not simply be in the form of more pledges and signatures, although they have their place. We must act with new investment and clear transition plans with direct engagement and high-quality disclosures. As you leave today, remember that we all have a pivotal role to play in delivering the transition to a net-zero and climate-resilient future. Financial markets have the power to put us on track for Paris and prosperity. Let us move forward. We have no time to waste.