Statements and press releases
His Excellency, Felipe VI, King of Spain during his speech at the CARBON EXPO 2015 Opening Ceremony:"Carbon Expo involves a complete and ambitious program, which includes the participation of prestigious climate change experts, international negotiators, business leaders and policy makers from diverse countries, who are meeting to share experiences and present projects designed to bring solutions to this global challenge."
Following COP 21 in Paris and in the lead up to COP 22 in Marrakesh the world’s leading platform for carbon markets will focus on three main topics: markets and pricing, finance, and technology.
• A historic, universal agreement which represents a new type of cooperation and sets a framework in which all countries will take action towards a low-carbon, climate resilient future.
• A clear horizonhas been set, with a commitment to peak GHG emissions as soon as possible and achieve net zero emissions in the 2nd half of this century (with clarity on its definition).
• A goal of limiting global warming to “well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”
Regarding financial support, countries agreed to define “a concrete roadmap to achieve the goal of jointly providing USD 100 billion annually by 2020”. Countries will continue their existing collective mobilization goal through 2025 and agreed to set a new collective quantified goal for climate finance, “from a floor of USD 100 billion per year” and open the door for increased developing parties contributions.
The Paris agreement also recognizes that countries can use “internationally transferred mitigation outcomes” to achieve their nationally determined contributions, while promoting sustainable development and respecting environmental integrity and transparency. The details and rules will be developed later, but this provision recognizes the role carbon markets, as well as other non-market mechanisms, can play in promoting GHG mitigation.
COP21 was also a great moment for climate action, notably from investors and businesses. Through the “Lima Paris Action Agenda”, impressive climate initiatives have been presented, demonstrating the efforts already on-going for climate action. Just to name a few:
• “Portfolio Decarbonization Coalition”: 20 investors, representing US$3.2 trillion, committing to decarbonization of US$600 billion in assets.
• 106 banks, annually investing a total of 250 Billion USD, and dozens of investors, managing 4000 Bn USD of assets, have committed to a major increase in energy efficiency lending in their portfolios.
• International cooperative and mutual insurance federation overshoot their pledge made in 2014 with more than 109 Billion of green investments made to date and a new 5-5-5 initiative to bring micro-insurance for 25 million vulnerable people in support to G7 pledge.
• 64 CEOs representing USD 1.9 trillion in annual revenue commit to integrate carbon pricing into corporate long-term strategies
• 450 CEOs from 65 countries across 30 sectors commit to set targets to drive climate action.
• 115 companies (with combined GHG emissions equivalent to 125 coal-fired power plants emissions in a year) from around the world commit to align their emissions reductions targets in line with below 2°C.
• The “Breakthrough Energy Coalition”, which includes 28 investors from 10 countries, led by Bill Gates, is backing the “Mission innovation” (an initiative of 20 countries to double R&D investments in clean energy) with major private capital investments.
• The NAZCA (Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action) portal, launched at COP20 last year, has already registered commitments from over 5,000 companies from more than 90 countries (representing over $38 trillion in revenue).
Coming only a few months after the COP21, Carbon Expo 2016 is a unique opportunity to move forward on all these issues. Building on COP21 momentum, it will be a great event for private/public sector discussions on how to achieve national contributions targets and accelerate climate action and cooperation.
