UK government launches plan to accelerate growth of green finance
By Paul Homewood
The Government released this yesterday:
New measures will build on the UK’s global leadership in green finance as part of the move to a low carbon economy.
- Government establishes taskforce of senior financial experts to accelerate growth of green finance and the UK’s low carbon economy.
- Proposals announced today will build on the UK’s global leadership, including development of world’s first green financial management standards with the British Standards Institute.
- The transition to a low carbon economy offers Britain a multi-billion pound investment opportunity, creating high-value jobs and boosting exports.
New measures to accelerate investment in clean growth by building on the UK’s strength in green finance will be set out later today by Climate Change Minister Claire Perry at the opening ceremony of Climate Week in New York.
Green finance includes private sector investments in technologies, infrastructure and innovative start-ups that can create jobs and allow businesses to expand, boosting economic growth while reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Between 1990 and 2016, UK GDP has grown by 67%, while carbon emissions have fallen by 42%, proving it is possible to reduce emissions and grow the economy.
Although the green finance agenda has gained global momentum in recent years, the market must accelerate to meet climate change commitments. An estimated $13.5 trillion of investment is needed between 2015 and 2030 in the energy sector alone, for countries to meet their Paris Agreement targets. The Government recognises that much of this investment will come from the private sector and wants to use the UK’s green finance capabilities to provide a real national economic boost and help meet global challenges.
Claire Perry, Minister of State for Climate Change and Industry said:
Britain has already shown the world that a strong economy and efforts to tackle climate change can, and should, go hand in hand. Now is the time to build on our strengths and cement our position as a global hub for investment in clean growth.
The transition to a low carbon economy is a multi-billion pound investment opportunity and a key part of this Government’s Industrial Strategy. Developing standards to promote responsible investment in sustainable projects and establishing the Green Finance Taskforce will help ensure businesses across the UK take full advantage of it.
Britain’s financial sector is already a world-leader in green finance. Enabling this sector to develop further will not only assist the transition to a low carbon economy but also ensure London remains the world’s leading global financial centre.
It is important for public and private partnerships to work together and the Green Finance Taskforce announced today will bring together a top team of financial experts, including leading figures from Aviva, Barclays, HSBC, Legal & General and the Bank of England, as well as academics and sustainability experts.
The Taskforce, chaired by Sir Roger Gifford, former Lord Mayor of London, will be given six months to deliver ambitious proposals to accelerate investment in the transition to a low carbon economy, creating high-value jobs and opportunities for UK businesses. It will examine a range of interventions, from making infrastructure investment more sustainable to scaling-up green mortgages.
Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Barclay said:
Financial services are a British success story and the sector has the power to drive green and sustainable development.
It is a priority of mine that people are able to access financial products that support their values, whether that be sharia-compliant loans or green mortgages that have a positive environmental impact. This taskforce will keep the UK at the forefront of green finance and help deliver choice for consumers.
The Government is also announcing work with the Green Finance Initiative and the British Standards Institute to develop a new set of voluntary green and sustainable finance management standards, working closely with industry. The British Standards Institute will have completed the necessary standards scoping exercises and have the first standard in production by the first half of 2018.
The Government has also officially endorsed recommendations published by the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures and encourages all listed companies to implement this new, voluntary framework to align climate-related risk management and financial governance. These recommendations represent a key milestone in the global low carbon transition, and have been backed by over 100 businesses worldwide with a market capitalisation of more than $3 trillion.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-government-launches-plan-to-accelerate-growth-of-green-finance
Now you will excuse me if I sound cynical, but I somehow doubt that all of these banks and financiers will be funding green finance out of the goodness of their hearts!
They will hope to make a nice little earner out of it, and we all know who will end up paying the bill.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Can’t these clowns see that the example we are setting the world is one of complete, financially suicidal idiocy. Who do they imagine we are leading?
Well yesterday someone came up with the wheeze that global warming isn’t as bad at we thought cos we’d under estimated our ability to reduce CO2 with green measures
Telegraph :
\\Claire Perry, the climate change and industry minister, claimed Britain had already demonstrated that tackling climate change and running a strong economy could go “hand in hand”.//
Then today we continue the narrative with “UK government launches plan to accelerate growth of green finance”
\\Global mayors, business leaders, influencers and climate experts gathered at the New York Times building for the first ever #C40Talks event
.. to highlight the critical role of cities in the fight against climate change.//
more
The small celebration that surrounded the disbanding of DECC seems premature – since it is now abundantly obvious that the perps (and those sub contracted NGO goons that DECC wouldn’t talk about under FoI ) were simply buried even further beyond accountability in the bowels of BEIS
An organisation that is looking to push its way to the top of the pile of ironically named goobermint departments…
Isn’t it amazing that whatever happens our public servants always mange to dream up lavishly catered “away days” events on the back of green blobbery?
The UK and USA have different approaches.
Now where would I place my betting money???
Geoff.
What a monumental waste of time and money! The idiots who devise and operate the huge folly should be made to pay for it. That would quickly bring it to a halt. It is like a cancer festering away at the centre of our society, run by bigoted, foolish bureaucrats who are experts at spending money but never have the wit to earn it.
Future generations will look back in astonishment at their foolish and incompetent forbears as we presently do at believers of witches and the like.
Sorry, but governments are masters of cover-up: a massive enquiry employing lots of lawyers and “experts” will produce the required report (remember Leverson???).
Then Gummer, Wadham, Myles Allen et al will take their generous final salary pensions and carry-on believing that they saved the world from itself.
Get yer wallets out folks. The tax man cometh dressed in green.
I would like to hide my wallet somewhere neither the taxman nor I can find it. The second part of that desire is not difficult fulfill these days hehe.
Up yer Kilt?
🙂
Paul, it looks like yet more over hyping of a Hurricane, they have announced that Maria dropped 40mb down to 924 mb and wind speeds rose to 160Mph in 12 hours.
Yet NuSchool real time shows surface pressure at 1000mb and constant wind speed around 110Kph, ie 70Mph.
Something wrong somewhere, unfortantely I do not know how to access Bouy and weather station data in that area.
Investors beware! It seems like another bubble in the making. Remember the housing market crash of 2008. Part of the responsibility of this crash was due to the government’s insistence of forcing banks to fund housing loans to buyers with subprime credit ratings. The government provided loan guarantees. Many people and investors took out mortgages with dangerously high monthly payments relative to their incomes. Caution was thrown to the wind. So when the government establishes taskforce of senior financial experts to accelerate growth of green finance and the UK’s low carbon economy, they are now only putting their money at risk but also yours, because many times the government is financially guaranteeing those loans.
Did they account for the offshore movement of industries to China and elsewhere in the 42% reduction in CO2? Doubt it very much. Chinese steel is massive. Any loss of industry to other countries where industrial standards are lax should be accounted for in the losing country as well. There is no decrease in total world CO2 (or real pollutants), so this “accounting” is nothing more than redistribution of emissions. What would they say to charging the countries “carbon” fees if they buy the steel? It wouldn’t be produced if there wasn’t a market.
Fooking hell, where to start with that pile of dogs doings? Just one quote but from many, too bloody many………..
How is it possible to talk that much statistical bollocks daubed through with Panglossian politicking bilge and not die of shame?
I make two observations drawn from the above quote:
i. GDP has grown in those 1990-2016 mainly, even exclusively because of mass immigration, what is probably also true is that, per capita wealth has actually decreased.
ii. UK CO2 emissions may well have diminished by circa 42% [who knows] what should also be reflected upon is that, during the tenure and after that up to Osbornonomics of chancellors ex ‘moral compass’ macruin onwards – the UK’s manufacturing base shrunk from 25% to approx 12.5%, thanks to bonkers gas and energy tariffs leading to manic off shoring and added in, a gargantuan intake of Chinese manufactured goods under cutting UK made goods, ie in other words UK emissions went up but not ‘made’ in the UK.
I could go on but this sort of Tory green gung ho guff ex Claire perry &co makes my brain hurt so much and i’m likely to blow a gasket.
Agree entirely, but my gasket has already blown.
Like killing its own citizens, “Corporate Welfare” is a strong indicator of evil and stupid government.
Targeted incentives and subsidies generally produce appalling waste and scandal. Nevertheless until bureaucrats get jailed for stupid/corrupt decisions it will get worse. Can anyone explain why Hillary Clinton has not been indicted for “Pay to Play”?
Quite a contrast to what happens to stupid/corrupt managers of private companies.
Ah the Clintons are a curse on the US, the Clinton foundation is a transport of poisoned malignancy, it is a vehicle whose wheels are greased by public graft.
Who can, who has the political clout necessary, indeed the singlemindedness, wherewithal to ‘drain the swamp’?
but it’s not just bureaucrats and devious deceitful public peculation…
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”…..said Jefferson.
Now factor in Clinton’s links to GS and that’s another cesspit of depravity, greed and abandonment of all and any morality. In the US TPTB are too intricately associated with the Clinton’s, if ‘Slick’ went down with his titular wife, who else could they bring down?
The whole shebang – that’s what.
Hello Paul
Carbon = building block of life Co2 = Plant food World population ~8bn
Cut carbon = cut food = Starvation = Communism…
What am I missing please?
Kind regards Shane
I have asked newspapers and radio news programmes in New Zealand to describe carbon. I think they have the impression that carbon is a gas. It would be an interesting exercise if people on this blog could send a similar request to their local politicians.
Not to ask about global warming or climate change because their jobs depend on them toeing the Party Line but just to get an idea of what is in their mind’s eye when they say the word Carbon.
Green finance = subsidy finance.
Otherwise its just finance.
Claire Perry – wasn’t she the bimbo who could not tell the difference between ‘deficit’ and ‘debt’ when questioned by Paxman during her time at the Treasury?