UN Climate Change News, 26 June – Investors from around the globe are urging world government leaders to step up ambition on climate change and enact strong policies by 2020 to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, including phasing out thermal coal power and pricing carbon.

477 investors with $34 trillion (USD) in assets, a record number of signatories, are behind the urgent call-to-action to limit average global temperature rise to no more than 1.5-degrees Celsius. In a Global Investor Statement to Governments on Climate Change, the investors wrote:

“As institutional investors with millions of beneficiaries around the world, we reiterate our full support for the Paris Agreement and strongly urge all governments to implement the actions that are needed to achieve the goals of the Agreement, with the utmost urgency"

The statement comes as world government leaders gather at the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit in Osaka, Japan and as the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres calls on “countries to build no new coal power plants after 2020.”

In particular, investors are asking world government leaders to:

Achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals

• Update and strengthen nationally-determined contributions to meet the emissions reduction goal of the Paris Agreement, starting the process now and completing it no later than 2020, and focusing swiftly on implementation
• Formulate and communicate long-term emission reduction strategies
• Align all climate-related policy frameworks holistically with the goals of the Paris Agreement
• Support a just transition to a low carbon economy.

Accelerate private sector investment into the low carbon transition

• Incorporate Paris-aligned climate scenarios into all relevant policy frameworks and energy transition pathways
• Phase out thermal coal power worldwide by set deadlines
• Put a meaningful price on carbon
• Phase out fossil fuel subsidies by set deadlines

Commit to improve climate-related financial reporting

• Publicly support the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations and the extension of its term
• Commit to implement the TCFD recommendations in their jurisdictions, no later than 2020
• Request the FSB incorporate the TCFD recommendations into its guidelines
• Request international standard-setting bodies incorporate the TCFD recommendations into their standards.

See the relevant Investor Agenda press release, with quotes, here.