The Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance is encouraged by the international agreement to establish a ‘loss and damage’ fund. The fund will help the world’s most vulnerable in developing countries withstand and recover from the physical impacts of climate change, today and into the future.
While this agreement is crucial, it is only the first step. We urge the international community, and in particular developed countries, to maintain momentum and to expeditiously proceed with operationalising and sufficiently capitalising the fund so that it can start enabling action on the ground as quickly as possible.
The Alliance is concerned that there was no new agreement at COP27 to raise and catalyse countries’ ambition to decarbonise. The Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), collectively, are still far from where the science tells us they need to be, and it is disappointing that COP27 did not deliver enough meaningful ratchet, at a time where it is most needed.
As net-zero committed investors in the global economy, Alliance members need to see more resolve from world governments to raise their ambition, until they are in line with a low or no-overshoot 1.5C pathway, including explicit and meaningful commitments in the short term to phase down fossil fuels and ultimately phase them out.
We urge governments to work harder and faster in the next 12 months into COP28, to keep the Paris target alive and support businesses and investors that are taking tangible action to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.