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Monday, November 30, 2020

tfcd accounting bloomberg road to cop26

 2020 report https://assets.bbhub.io/company/sites/60/2020/09/2020-TCFD_Status-Report.pdf

The Task Force consists of 31 members from across the G20, representing both preparers and users of financial disclosures. The TCFD is chaired by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P.

Task Force members provide an introduction to the TCFD.

nov 30 zoom meet bloomberg

10:05 AM - The TCFD Tipping Point 

In the three years since the release of the TCFD recommendations, over 1,600 organizations have declared support for them, including over 1,615 companies with a market capitalization of $14.4 trillion and financial institutions responsible for assets of $153.4 trillion. Ten national governments have also endorsed the TCFD, with the UK becoming the first G20 country to make climate-related disclosure aligned with the TCFD mandatory. 

In this panel, Task Force members will discuss the significant momentum around the TCFD and the recently released 2020 Status Report, including the global regulatory shift toward compulsory climate-related financial disclosure, and what companies need to know to begin their disclosure journeys.

  • Zoë Knight, Managing Director and Group Head, HSBC Centre of Sustainable Finance
  • Mark Lewis, Global Head of Sustainability Research, BNP Paribas Asset Management
  • Didem Nisanci, Global Head of Public Policy, Bloomberg 
  • Moderator: Nat Bullard, Chief Content Officer, Bloomberg NEF
transcript https://thisten.co/s28me/BLccTCLHklS8NGUS2KUw42gvL1Y4WXUzJV1QRUac

Tuesday, November 24, 2020

 

Global companies are taking bigger, bolder action as we enter a decisive decade to combat climate change and seek to prevent irreparable harm to our shared planet and humanity. More need to follow their example.

More than ever, we need to work ambitiously together across industries and sectors, governments and civil society, to reach our shared climate goals, as UN Secretary-General António Guterres has outlined: by investing in green jobs, refusing to bail out polluting industries, ending fossil fuel subsidies, taking climate risk into account in all financial and policy decisions, putting sustainability at the heart of the COVID-19 recovery, working in partnership, and leaving no one behind.

That was the resounding message during the UN Foundation’s recent virtual event Global Dialogue: Bold Leadership for a Better Future. In a conversation called “How to Lead When We’re Out of Time,” leading executives from Microsoft, Walmart, and Google described how they are taking bold action on climate as we enter the last decade of action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Through an unprecedented global pandemic, we’ve seen the importance of solidarity and cooperation, which carry directly over into addressing the growing climate crisis. And in this critical moment, we must pursue an increasingly ambitious agenda to reach the goals in full and on time by 2030, as the world’s young people so often remind us.

Dustin Liu, the UNA-USA youth observer, who moderated the conversation, stressed that “big, bolder change is needed to ensure the transition to a green, sustainable future” and to fulfill the vision that young activists have been calling for.

We have seen positive signs over the past few months from a number of countries that are making their emission reduction targets more ambitious.

Most notable are the commitments by Japan and South Korea to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 and China’s goal of peaking its emission before 2030 and reaching carbon neutrality by 2060. The European Union has pledged to attain carbon neutrality across the continent by 2050 and is working on significantly enhancing its 2030 target. And, of course, the U.S., under an incoming Biden administration, has pledged to rejoin the Paris Agreement, reengage in global climate diplomacy, and work to set more robust climate goals, both domestically and internationally. President-elect Biden also named former Secretary of State John Kerry to be his special presidential envoy for climate, a Cabinet-level position.

Photo: United Nations

But for this all to succeed, we need corporate leadership, too.

Microsoft has committed to be carbon negative by 2030 and to remove from the environment, by 2050, all the carbon the company has emitted since it was founded. The company is complementing that pledge with an effort to help its suppliers and customers around the world reduce their own carbon footprints and is establishing a $1 billion climate innovation fund to accelerate the global development of carbon reduction, capture, and removal technologies.

Microsoft is also working with other companies to set zero emission targets through the recently launched Transform to Net Zero initiative, which also includes Nike, Starbucks, Maersk, and Mercedes-Benz.

“We can’t each reinvent our own wheels here,” John Frank, vice president for UN affairs for Microsoft, said at the event. “We are committed to sharing information, and, frankly, learning from each other. Because when you make a big, bold commitment, you’re not always sure exactly how you are going to get there. We’re all going to have steps forward and steps back, and if we can do a better job of learning from each other that will make us more effective.”

We have already seen welcome shifts as private sector companies and organizations have taken steps to reimagine their approaches, including tackling climate action in supply chains and working toward 100% reliance on carbon-free energy in their operations.

Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, recently set a target of zero emissions by 2040 and aims to protect, manage, and restore at least 50 million acres of land and 1 million square miles of ocean by 2030. It is committed not only to decarbonize its own global operations but also to be on the path of becoming a regenerative company, one that works to restore, renew, and replenish the planet.

“We’ve been working for about 15 years on sustainability, but we decided to raise the ambition to commit to 2040 as the point where we would be at zero emissions,” said Kathleen McLaughlin, the retailer’s chief sustainability officer and president of the Walmart Foundation. “Not net zero, but zero in our operations.”

For Walmart, that has meant transforming how suppliers make products that work in harmony with nature and partnering with others to conserve and restore adjacent lands so they work better for both nature and people.

“We’re trying to transform how retail works as a sector,” McLaughlin said. “It’s ambitious. It will take everybody. But we’re committed to working on that.”

And they are not the only ones. Building on three decades of sustainability work, Google is embarking on its biggest moonshot yet.

“Advancing sustainability is a core value for Google, and something we’ve pursued for decades,” said Markham Erickson, the company’s vice president for government affairs and public policy. “We see global challenges as opportunities to create value for our stakeholders and help make life better for everyone.”

In September, the company pledged to immediately eliminate its entire carbon legacy and become the first major company to operate on 24/7 carbon-free energy in all of its data centers and campuses worldwide by 2030. Google has also said it plans to enable 5 gigawatts of new carbon-free energy and to help 500 cities reduce a total of one gigaton of emissions per year by 2030 — the equivalent of the energy used by a country the size of Japan.

“The science is clear that if we are going to avoid the worst consequences of climate change, we need to cut global emissions by nearly 50% by the end of the decade,” said Erickson. “It’s important for companies to be part of these conversations.”

These are just some of the examples of bold leadership the Global Dialogue sought to showcase. And with time running short, it’s important for everyone — from companies to national leaders, from investors to governors — to follow suit and turn these conversations into action.

Monday, November 16, 2020

 

Bezos makes first donations from $10 billion Earth Fund for fighting climate change

Jeff Bezos said Monday he is giving $791 million to 16 groups fighting climate change, the first grants from his Earth Fund, saying the money is “just the beginning of my $10 billion commitment to fund scientists, activists, NGOs, and others."More than half of the donations went to established environmental groups, with $100 million donations each going to the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Nature Conservancy, the World Resources Institute and the World Wildlife Fund.

Bezosalso bestowed money on groups concerned with environmental justice, including Dream Corps’ Green For All, the Hive Fund for Climate and Gender Justice, and the Solutions Project.t.

Leaders of the groups receiving funds said they met earlier this year with Bezos and his partner Lauren Sánchez to discuss what they would do with the grants.

“Climate change is the biggest crisis facing humanity but, despite lots of great work, has been an underfunded area of philanthropy,” said Jules Kortenhorst, head of the Rocky Mountain Institute, which received $10 million. Krupp said that the $100 million grant to the Environmental Defense Fund would be spread over three years, and much of it would go toward fully funding a satellite the organization plans to put into orbit to monitor methane emissions. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that can be 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.The money would give a boost to the group, which ordinarily has a budget of about $230 million a year.“Thanks to this and other funding, we will cut methane pollution from the oil and gas industry by 45 percent by 2025, which will be the same 20-year benefit of closing a third of the world’s power plants,” Krupp said.Krupp also said that currently less than 2 percent of global philanthropy is directed at solving climate change.

Wildlife Fund said it would use its $100 million grant to “harness the power of nature” including the protection and restoration of mangroves in Colombia, Fiji, Madagascar, and Mexico; the development of new markets for seaweed as an alternative to fossil fuel-based products; and the restoration and protection of forests.

WWF’s chief executive Carter Roberts said in a statement that the group could use the money from Bezos to leverage an additional $850 million from other partners.

Steven Mufson covers the business of climate change for The Washington Post. Since joining The Post in 1989, he has covered economic policy, China, diplomacy, energy and the White House. Earlier, he worked for The Wall Street Journal. In 2020, he shared the Pulitzer Prize for a climate change series "2C: Beyond the Limit."Follow

Wednesday, November 11, 2020

 Explore Ron's Virtual Keynote A View From The Orbital Perspective >>
Astronaut Ron Garan poses massive collaboration challenge
...GET IN TOUCH

The Orbital Perspective Podcast

From Space, It's clear that everything is changing.
11 years ago i was privileged to meet ron garan in berlin and 200 supporters of the greatest lives matter races on earth- not sure which vips answer which calls but chat with me if i might be able to find the beam me up scotty link you need -chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk