Sustainable finance has become a huge market, with issuers all over the world having sold more than $2 trillion of green bonds. Yet the climate emergency is still getting worse. Finance is committed to aligning with the Paris Agreement, but is it on track?
In this special podcast supported by the European Investment Bank to coincide with the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Marrakech in October 2023, Nancy Saich, the EIB’s chief climate change expert, and Eila Kreivi, its chief sustainable finance advisor, discuss the finance industry’s efforts to become sustainable.
They point out that no parts of the financial markets are yet fulfilling the Paris commitment. While finance is flowing to green technologies, this needs to increase massively – and just as importantly, the financing of fossil fuel expansion has to end.
Between those two priorities is another – financing the whole economy as it transitions. Saich and Kreivi discuss how the financial system can create standards to define what is an ambitious transition, and what is a just one.