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From Poznan to Copenhagen: policy makers look to investors on climate change policy
Chance now for investors to feed into the negotiating process.
Poznan, Poland
Attending a UN climate conference for the first time, as I did in Poznan in mid-December, was an eye-opener. It brought home the large number of competing interests and the difficulties of influencing the shape of the treaty that will follow the Kyoto Protocol and determine the post-2012 international policy framework on climate change. More than 10,000 participants descended on the Polish city for a two-week conference – the 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Climate Convention – including policymakers, NGOs and other stakeholders. Institutional investors have in the past kept a low profile at these events. There are probably only a handful of investors who have ever looked at the text of the Kyoto Protocol. The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC, the European forum for collaboration between pension funds and asset managers on climate change) was intent on making the investor voice heard. It went to the conference armed with the “Investor Statement on the Global Agreement on Climate Change” outlining how a new international treaty could support investment into a low-carbon economy. The Statement was co-ordinated together with the US-based Investor Network on Climate Risk and the
Australia/New Zealand Investor Group on Climate Change and signed by some 150 investors with over $9 trillion in assets. The overwhelming support for the Statement was indicative of the recognition by investors that climate change and climate policy will increasingly have an impact on the global economy as well as on individual investments. Rob Lake, head of sustainability at APG Investments, who was part of the IIGCC delegation, said at the conference that the signatories were persuaded by the economic and scientific case of climate policy and had a fiduciary duty to take it seriously. The Statement has since proved a useful starting point for a proper dialogue between the investment community and governments involved in the climate negotiations. It called for a strong and clear international policy framework on climate change that would underpin investor confidence in the direction of regional and national climate policy. It emphasised the importance of ambitious international emission reduction targets based on latest scientific evidence, of long and medium-term targets for developed countries and commitments to national action plans from developing countries.
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