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Transition of financial activities towards net zero in the global context

Transition of financial activities towards net zero in the global context

Day 1 Afternoon

Wednesday 26 April

Room :

ROOM 2

Speakers

Chair
Derville Rowland
Deputy Governor Consumer and Investor Protection - Central Bank of Ireland
Public Authorities
Johan Almenberg
State Secretary to Minister for Financial Markets - Ministry of Finance, Sweden
Luiz Pereira da Silva
Deputy General Manager - Bank for International Settlements
Eva Wimmer
Director General - Federal Ministry of Finance, Germany
Industry Representatives
Thomas Béhar
Chief Financial Officer - CNP Assurances
Matteo Del Fante
Chief Executive Officer - Poste Italiane
Stéphane Giordano
Deputy Head of Group Public Affairs - Société Générale
Shinichi Tsunoda
General Manager, Sustainable Business Promotion Department - Mizuho Financial Group, Inc. / Mizuho Bank, Ltd.

Objectives

The EU Commission has launched varied workstreams that support the European green deal aim of channelling private investment towards the transition to a climate-neutral economy.

In addition to the approaches to improve sustainability risk measurement, management, and mitigation, the concrete outcomes are mainly ambitious disclosure regulations and standards. They all aim at easing the assessment of sustainability investment risks and fostering transparency regarding the impact of companies.

However, recently some global class investment players raised the issue of a conflict between sustainability ambitions and more traditional return and security

Objectives

. Sustainability transparency is also fuelling debates of an essentially political nature.

Furthermore, these transparency provisions are not achieving what an international carbon tax would, neither clarifying uncertainties stemming from choices that only policy makers can make. Finally, financial regulators object that their mission and powers should not be overestimated.

In this context the session is dedicated to clarifying the realistic contributions of the greening of financial activities to the general net zero objective, outline the role of transition planning by financial institutions, and the contribution of the initiatives (NGFS, GFANZ…) in this respect, and finally workout what would be the necessary and missing contribution of public decision makers.

Points of discussion

  1. Is the mere greening of financial activities the optimal transition tool to the general net zero objective? What is the contribution to the transition to net zero of economies, of transparency frameworks of the financial sphere?
  2. What are the main

    Objectives

    of transition planning by financial players and related challenges? What are the respective contributions of the NGFS, GFANZ, or the Transition Pathway Initiative…?

  3. What would be the necessary contribution of public sector to relief financial institutions of any undue obligation to drive the transition?