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    33 Nordic Institutions Endorse Climate Appeal Ahead of UN Summit

    Stockholm (NordSIP) – 587 investors with US$46 trillion in assets under management, signed a joint statement urging national governments to rapidly implement five priority policy actions that will allow them to invest the trillions needed to respond to the climate crisis. The appeal takes place in the run-up to the most consequential UN climate change conference in years, and on the heels of another urgent warning from the world’s leading scientists on climate change.

    33 Nordic institutions added their support to the joint statement, including AkademikerPension, Alecta, AMF, AP Pension, AP1, AP3, AP4, AP6, AP7, Church of Sweden, Danica Pension, Danske Bank Asset Management, Evli Bank, Folksam, Handelsbanken Fonder, Ilmarinen, Länsförsäkringar Liv, Mistra,Nordea Asset Management, Öhman Fonder, P+, PenSam, PensionDanmark, PFA Pension, PKA, Skandia Fonder, Skandia Liv, Söderberg Partners Asset Management, Storebrand Asset Management, Swebank Robur, The Pension Fund of the Evangelical Church of Finland, Varma and Velliv.

    “Full implementation of the Paris Agreement will create significant investment opportunities in clean technologies, green infrastructure and other assets, products and services needed in this new economy,” the statement reads.

    Investor signatories to the statement called on all governments to undertake five priority actions before the 26th United Nations Climate Conference in Glasgow in November (COP26):

    1. Strengthen their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) for 2030 before COP26, to align with limiting warming to 1.5-degrees Celsius and ensuring a planned transition to net-zero emissions by 2050 or sooner.
    2. Commit to a domestic mid-century, net-zero emissions target and outline a pathway with ambitious interim targets including clear decarbonization roadmaps for each carbon-intensive sector.
    3. Implement domestic policies to deliver these targets, incentivize private investments in zero-emissions solutions and ensure ambitious pre-2030 action through: robust carbon pricing, the removal of fossil fuel subsidies by set deadlines, the phase out of thermal coal-based electricity generation by set deadlines in line with credible 1.5-degrees Celsius temperature pathways, the avoidance of new carbon-intensive infrastructure(e.g. no new coal power plants) and the development of just transition plans for affected workers and communities.
    4. Ensure COVID-19 economic recovery plans support the transition to net-zero emissions and enhance resilience. This includes facilitating investment in zero-emissions energy and transport infrastructure, avoiding public investment in new carbon-intensive infrastructure and requiring carbon-intensive companies that receive government support to enact climate change transition plans consistent with the Paris Agreement.
    5. Commit to implementing mandatory climate risk disclosure requirements aligned with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) recommendations, ensuring comprehensive disclosures that are consistent, comparable, and decision-useful.

    “As investors, we are committed to working with governments to ensure policy mechanisms are developed and implemented to transition to a climate resilient net-zero emissions economy by 2050 or sooner. We urge all governments to step up their collective response to the climate crisis,” the joint statement concludes.

    Filipe Albuquerque
    Filipe Albuquerque
    Filipe is an economist with 8 years of experience in macroeconomic and financial analysis for the Economist Intelligence Unit, the UN World Institute for Development Economic Research, the Stockholm School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Filipe holds a MSc in European Political Economy from the LSE and a MSc in Economics from the University of London, where he currently is a PhD candidate.

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