Events

Columbia University

As climate change’s effects are already visible, the COP21 Paris agreement to maintain global warming to well below 2°C by 2100 entails the need for over USD1 trillion per year by 2030 worldwide to finance the energy transition, while another $1.4tn by 2030 is needed in low‐income countries alone to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For the first time in 2016, climate finance was added to the G20 Agenda in Hangzhou and at the heart of the Marrakech summit

Climate finance and sustainable development goals in emerging countries are intertwined. Reaching SDGs objectives in emerging countries entails the necessary inclusion of the climate change component into financial innovations, and a number of vehicles can achieve this dual objective. Investors can leverage on climate change and SDGs objectives to spur growth, better their risk management framework and enhance their stewardship activities.

Surfing on the climate finance wave in emerging markets could help achieve greater sustainable development objectives, and ultimately participate to both green infrastructure & sustainable agriculture as well as financial markets developments. Public financial institutions and investors are increasingly getting mobilized and joining their forces in developing key strategies for climate change.

Against this backdrop, and ahead of the World Bank Spring Meetings and German G20 Presidency, this high level symposium should provide investors and policymakers with the opportunity to reflect and share experience on strategies to spur both positive impacts on the environment and growth opportunities in emerging markets.

Agenda 

Co‐organizers:

Center on Global Economic Governance, SIPA, Columbia University

The Center on Global Economic Governance (CGEG) at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) was created with the recognition that without adequate global economic governance there is a greater possibility of major crises and a tendency toward protectionism and political upheaval. It is our mission to develop, promote and implement new theories, studies and policy initiatives that cut across nation‐state boundaries and address this new reality. CGEG is a premier forum for producing a new wave of policy‐oriented research on global economic governance, bringing critical issues into sharp focus while setting the highest academic standards in research, and bringing together key players from the academic, policy, and business world.

International Monetary Fund The IMF, also known as the Fund, was conceived at a UN conference in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States, in July 1944. The 44 countries at that conference sought to build a framework for economic cooperation to avoid a repetition of the competitive devaluations that had contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s.The IMF's responsibilities: The IMF's primary purpose is to ensure the stability of the international monetary system—the system of exchange rates and international payments that enables countries (and their citizens) to transact with each other. The Fund's mandate was updated in 2012 to include all macroeconomic and financial sector issues that bear on global stability.

OCP Policy Center
`
The OCP Policy Center is a Moroccan policy‐oriented think tank based in Rabat, Morocco, striving to promote knowledge sharing and to contribute to an enriched reflection on key economic and international relations issues. By offering a southern perspective on major regional and global strategic challenges facing developing and emerging countries, the OCP Policy Center aims to provide a meaningful policy‐making contribution through its four research programs: Agriculture, Environment and Food Security, Economic and Social Development, Commodity Economics and Finance, Geopolitics and International Relations.

On this basis, we are actively engaged in public policy analysis and consultation while promoting international cooperation for the development of countries in the southern hemisphere. In this regard, the OCP Policy Center aims to be an incubator of ideas and a source of forward thinking for proposed actions on public policies within emerging economies, and more broadly for all stakeholders engaged in the national and regional growth and development process. For this purpose, the Think Tank relies on independent research and a solid network of internal and external leading research fellows.

Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition

Portfolio decarbonization can be achieved by withdrawing capital from particularly carbon‐intensive companies, projects and technologies in each sector and by re‐investing that capital into particularly carbon‐efficient companies, projects, and technologies of the same sector. It can also be achieved through targeted engagement by investors with portfolio companies. When large institutional investors start to engage and/or re‐allocate capital on the basis of companies’ GHG emissions it provides a strong incentive for those companies to re‐channel their own investments from carbonintensive to low‐carbon activities, assets and technologies. 

Sovereign Wealth Fund Research Initiative (SWF RI)

SWF RI was established in 2009, bridging the gap between academics, policy‐makers and fund managers to identify new and innovative solutions for sustainable capitalism. With offices in Paris and New York, the SWF RI aims to promote and develop long‐term dialogue and research in collaboration with sovereign wealth funds and institutional asset owners worldwide in order to address current social, economic and environmental challenges. The SWF RI has had extensive interaction with professionals and academics worldwide and continues to grow its global network of contacts through its dedicated research platforms and annual events. The SWF RI is an independent organization part of the Institute Europlace de Finance and is partly sponsored by Amundi Asset Management, a subsidiary of the Credit Agricole Group. 

United Nations Environment Program – Finance Initiative (UNEP FI)

UNEP FI is a partnership between United Nations Environment Programme and the global financial sector created in the context of the 1992 Earth Summit with a mission to promote sustainable finance. Over 200 financial institutions, including banks, insurers and investors, work with UNEP to understand today’s environmental challenges, why they matter to finance, and how to actively
participate in addressing them.

UNEP FI’s work also includes a strong focus on policy – by fomenting country‐level dialogues between finance practitioners, supervisors, regulators and policy‐makers, and, at the international level, by promoting financial sector involvement in processes such as the global climate negotiations. Finally, UNEP FI hosts the Global Roundtable every other year since 1994.

Global Infrastructure Hub

GI Hub’s goal is to increase the flow and quality of private and public infrastructure, by facilitating knowledge sharing, highlighting reforms and connecting public & private sectors. Launched by the G20 in 2014, the Global Infrastructure Hub has a mandate to grow the global pipeline of quality, bankable infrastructure projects. By facilitating knowledge sharing, highlighting reform opportunities and connecting the public and private sectors, our ambitious goal is to increase the flow and quality of private and public infrastructure investment opportunities. All countries, regardless of whether or not they are members of the G20, are able to work with the GI Hub.