Thom Wetzer has been appointed by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) to its newly-established Consultative Working Group (CWG) on Sustainable Finance
Our analysis shows that phasing out coal is not just a matter of urgent necessity to limit global warming to 1.5°C; it is also a source of considerable economic gain, in terms of net benefits, defined as gross benefits minus gross costs.
Making carbon markets work better is more of a political challenge than an economic one... The difficulty is building and preserving support for measures that make most economic activities costlier. The same applies to other climate-friendly measures, notes Dr Ben Caldecott of Oxford University: Britain has long failed to raise petrol taxes in line with inflation, costing the government billions.
The overhaul of the global energy system may represent the single biggest investment opportunity in history, reports the Financial Times.
However, as the energy transition becomes more urgent, responsible investors need to think less about these ratings and more about outcomes, says Dr Ben Caldecott.
“What do ESG scores tell us about anything?” he asks. “They are mainly measuring processes and policies — if a company has a policy in place against deforestation it will get a good score, even if it is deforesting.”
The inaugural ENDS Power List includes Dr Ben Caldecott, Director of the Oxford Sustainable Finance Group as one of the 100 UK environmental professionals who have made the greatest impact in the past two years.
The UK plans to allow some natural gas projects to be labeled as sustainable in its green investment rulebook due to be published later this year.
“Natural gas is not ‘green’ and its inclusion in the EU green taxonomy has completely discredited it,” said Dr Ben Caldecott. “We can have a robust, science-based green taxonomy that is adopted worldwide because it is trusted by the market, thereby supporting UK leadership in green finance, or we can end up with something that is irrelevant..."
Bank of America pledges £1.2m to the University of Oxford to support ground-breaking greenhouse gas removal and sustainable finance research at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment.
Dr Ben Caldecott and Professor Nathalie Seddon have been appointed to the Adaptation Committee of the U.K.’s Climate Change Committee, an independent, statutory body established under the Climate Change Act 2008 to advise U.K. policy makers.
The data used in the analysis of sustainability-related factors has much room for improvement. Data quality affects our ability to understand exposures to different climate and environmental risk factors and how these change over time, the contributions to positive and negative externalities, and the vulnerabilities facing investments.