Take Five: Twin Peaks

ESG Investor

A selection of the major stories impacting ESG investors, in five easy pieces. 

Developed countries have belatedly reached a target for climate finance, only to be set a new one for nature.

Ten years after – It might have taken them a little more than a decade, but at last they got there. Developed nations mobilised US$115.9 billion of climate finance for developing countries in 2022, it was revealed this week, exceeding for the first time the US$100 billion annual level set in Copenhagen in 2009. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), last year saw a record 30% annual rise in climate finance, meaning the target – originally unveiled at COP 15 – was reached two years late. The total includes more than US$20 billion in attributable private finance, as well as bilateral and multilateral public sector funding, plus export credits. Importantly, adaptation finance accounted for US$32.4 billion of the total – three times the 2016 level. Discussions on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) on climate finance for the post-2025 period, which made little progress at COP28, should progress next week’s Bonn Climate Conference, where the agenda will also include carbon credits, adaptation finance and the Global Stocktake, ahead of COP29. In anticipation of the NCQG, the OECD released an analysis recommending use of public sector interventions to directly or indirectly finance climate action. But measures to support the goals of the Paris Agreement must now sit alongside those needed to realise the objectives of the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF). At a Nairobi summit that concluded yesterday, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity called for investments of at least US$200 billion a year from all sources, and for reform of US$500 billion in harmful subsidies to achieve the GBF’s Goal D: invest and collaborate for nature. These and other recommendations will be discussed at COP16 in Colombia in October.

Gap analysis – A lack of progress on gender equality in the workplace has been underlined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in a report reflecting fewer jobs and lower pay for women, especially in low-income countries. According to an update to the ILO’s annual World Employment and Social Outlook, the ‘jobs gap’ – which measures the number of persons without a job but who want to work – stands at 22.8% for women in low-income countries, versus 15.3% for men. This contrasts with a gap

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