24 August 2016: A coalition of six organizations representing 130 investors wrote a letter to the Heads of State of the Group of Twenty (G20), offering six recommendations on how to catalyze the investments needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement on climate change. The signatories call on the G20 Governments to ratify the Paris Agreement, double investment in clean energy, tighten climate disclosure mandate, provide meaningful carbon pricing and phase out fossil fuel subsidies.

The letter comes in the run-up to the 2016 G20 Leaders Summit, which will take place from 4-5 September 2016, in Hangzhou, China. The letter’s signatories manage a total of more than US$13 trillion in assets and include pension funds, insurance companies, religious entities, banks and asset management companies, among others.

The investors recommend that G20 leaders: ratify the Paris Agreement, if possible in 2016; implement the recommendations of the 2015 Global Investor Statement on Climate Change for governments, including providing an economically meaningful carbon price and developing plans to phase out fossil fuel subsidies; support a doubling of global investment in clean energy by 2020; implement and prepare to strengthen their nationally determined contributions (NDCs); enhance climate-related financial disclosure and related regulation; and ensure future G20 presidencies take the green finance agenda forward.

The investors also: applaud the G20 and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) on their commitment to improve climate disclosure; encourage G20 countries to consider the forthcoming recommendations (December 2016) by the FSB’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) as inputs towards rulemaking; welcome the work of the G20 Green Finance Study Group (GFSG); and call for the GFSG’s conclusions to be presented at the September 2016 Leaders Summit.

The GFSG, an initiative of the Chinese G20 Presidency, which was co-chaired by the People’s Bank of China and the Bank of England, met four times in 2016 with a mandate to examine the role of the financial system in mobilizing private green investment. The Group presented its report, titled ‘G20 Green Finance Synthesis Report,’ at the July G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting.

The six investor organizations co-sponsoring the letter are: CDP; the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC); the North American Investor Network on Climate Risk (Ceres/INCR); the Australia/New Zealand Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC); Europe’s Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC); and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). [Investor Coalition Press Release] [UNFCCC Press Release] [Investors’ Letter to G20 Leaders] [IISD RS Story on G20 Finance Ministers July 2016 Meeting] [IISD RS Story on the G20 Energy Ministers June Meeting] [IISD RS Story on the G20 Finance Ministers April Meeting]