Carney: World cannot face series of climate crises

The world cannot go through a series of climate crises in the same way as it bounces from financial crisis to financial crisis, an adviser to the Prime Minister has said.

Mark Carney – the former Bank of England governor who is now Boris Johnson’s Finance Adviser for Cop26 – said that the world will not have the chance to learn from its mistakes on the climate.

“The financial crisis was one of a long series of financial crises – we weren’t learning from history. We don’t get a long series of climate crises. We have one,” he said.

Mr Carney was speaking at the Green Horizon Summit running alongside the Cop26 conference in Glasgow.

Lord Stern, who was also speaking at the event, said that companies were stepping up to the challenge for the first time in Glasgow.

“I’ve been to all the Cops since 2006. This is the first Cop where the private sector – particularly the financial sector, but the whole private sector – is right out in front. I haven’t seen that before and it’s pulling governments along,” he said.

His comments were echoed by Mr Carney, who said that money needs to be channelled into the fight against climate change.

“The Prime Minister said yesterday that this Cop could mark the beginning of the end of addressing climate change,” he said.

Today is Day 2 of the World Leaders Summit at #COP26 , designed to galvanize climate action at the highest level. See the updated list of speakers: https://t.co/5SaQxokMaM pic.twitter.com/qt0Wu4xA8Y

— UN Climate Change (@UNFCCC) November 2, 2021

“That’s his ambition: He’s very Churchillian, as you know.

“I think this is the end of the beginning for finance. In other words we come together now moving from climate as risk to finance as a solution.”

In Paris in 2015 more developed countries promised to pay 100 billion dollars a year to those that are less developed, however this has far from been delivered yet.

Lord Stern said that this target is only set to be met next year, or the year after, something he said was “too late”.

Separately, on Tuesday morning Mr Carney told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that 450 companies had signed up to the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, which he set up.

“This is focused on providing the financing that’s needed globally to make the investments that we need to get to a net-zero economy,” he said.

“And it means bringing together financial institutions, whether that’s banks, insurance companies, pension funds, from around the world, and having them commit to net zero.”

The list of participants will be released on Wednesday.