Rachel Kyte urges investors to get on the right side of history at Sustainable Investment Forum
Climate Action’s Sustainable Investment Forum 2016 kicked off this morning in New York to a packed room of the investment community, with a powerful opening address from Special Representative of UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All, Rachel Kyte. Ms Kyte stressed that ‘very aspect of our lives must have a smaller energy footprint”
New York, September 20: Climate Action’s Sustainable Investment Forum 2016 kicked off this morning in New York to a packed room of the investment community, with a powerful opening address from Special Representative of UN Secretary General for Sustainable Energy for All, Rachel Kyte. Ms Kyte stressed that ‘very aspect of our lives must have a smaller energy footprint”.
Pre-Paris last year, more than 3 trillion dollars were divested from fossil fuels, following COP21 we need to pivot towards investment into clean energy. Ms Kyte posed the question “What if 1% was invested in energy access?” and highlighted two main issues for investors when looking towards this. Firstly the fact that seems to be a higher acceptance of risk in brown, than in green (talking broadly) and that this comfort level needs to be addressed, and secondly that investment opportunities are in emerging markets. She underlined the fact that some present extremely attractive options for investors.
Ms Kyte finished her intervention to 250+ investment leaders by urging them to “get on the right side of history early” and to “get boots on the ground to see the opportunity, and the opportunity will overflow.”
This leadership address was followed by a corporate investment community viewpoint from BMW i Ventures Managing Director, Dr Ulrich Quay. Dr Quay underlined the fact that BMW i Ventures invests in new technologies because "electric vehicles and urban mobility are crucial for BMW" but also to support the overall sustainable mobility ecosystem.
Attended by asset owners, asset managers and (add job titles), the Sustainable Investment Forum progresses the dialogue on the development of effective public-private funding mechanisms for scaling low carbon innovation and the way in which they can to come together to achieve the aims of the Paris agreement. The full speaker faculty and agenda can be accessed here (add URL).
The event which is hosted by Climate Action, in partnership with UNEP-FI and chaired by John Authers, Financial Commentator from the Financial Times, is an annual session as part of Climate Week NYC and the discussions can be followed on Twitter with hashtag #Sinv16.
