• Former US Secretary of State and current US Climate Envoy John Kerry, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, and UN Special Adviser and Assistant Secretary-General Selwin Hart addressed Alliance’s first in-person AGM
• Alliance members Allianz and University Pension Plan participated in the UN Secretary-General’s second Climate Ambition Summit
• At Climate Week NYC, the Alliance released a new discussion paper putting forward the economic case for the climate transition, highlighting $136-$275 trillion in climate investment opportunities

For the UN-Convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, the UN Secretary-General’s second Climate Ambition Summit (CAS), held during the 78^th UN General Assembly (UNGA), carried special significance.

The Alliance was launched by UN Secretary-General António Guterres four years prior at the 2019 CAS. At the time, 12 members committed to transition their investment portfolios to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, consistent with a maximum temperature rise of 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Four years later, 86 Alliance members are widely recognised as climate leaders in the finance sector, with the Secretary-General referring to the Alliance as the “gold standard” for net-zero pledges from non-state actors.

An AGM to remember

The Alliance held its first-ever in-person and online Annual General Meeting (AGM) during Climate Week NYC, which runs alongside the UNGA.

Asset owners gathered at the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund’s HQ in New York to discuss climate policy in the United States, the European Union, and emerging markets; the implementation of credible net-zero emissions targets; and the need for an enabling policy environment for a just net-zero transition.

Former US Secretary of State and current US Special Presidential Envoy on Climate John Kerry addressed 60-plus principals, representatives and strategic advisers on the state of global climate action.

Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat Senator of Rhode Island and a leading voice on fiduciary duty and responsible investment, outlined challenges facing responsible investors in the US, while Helena Viñes Fiestas, Commissioner of the Spanish Financial Markets Authority and Chair of the EU Platform on Sustainable Finance, summarised the expected outputs from the EU.

Selwin Hart, Special Adviser and Assistant UN Secretary-General at the Alliance’s AGM. Photo credit 10: Billion Solutions

In an interview to be broadcast next month in the NZAOA’s fourth anniversary film, Selwin Hart, UN Special Adviser and Assistant Secretary-General, summed up the increasing significance of investors making the right decisions amid the worsening climate crisis.

“The next four years will be critical, and our collective fight to mitigate the climate change risks tells us that if we are to stand a fighting chance of preventing the worst impacts of climate change by limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, we need to halve global emissions over the next seven years. So, the investment decisions that are being made now… by governments, by financial institutions, and by corporates, will have a consequential impact on our ability to keep the 1.5-degree goal of the Paris Agreement.”

Allianz and UPP speak at the Climate Ambition Summit

Allianz CEO, Oliver Bäte, joined world leaders at the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Ambition Summit to highlight the vital role of partnerships play in driving a sustainable, low-carbon global transition.

Representing the Alliance at the opening plenary showcasing “first mover and first doer” leaders, Bäte said: “Transforming our economy is actually a huge opportunity. The cost of not transforming dwarfs the investments needed for the transformation.

“Our belief in the power of collaboration, that led us to launch the UN-Convened Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance here in this building, is essential.”

Oliver Bäte, Allianz CEO at the Climate Ambition Summit. Photo credit 10: Billion Solutions

Allianz – the only private sector organisation represented at the CAS opening plenary – has set intermediate net-zero targets for 2025 as has the vast majority of Alliance members. In 2022, with 44 members setting and reporting on targets, $7.1 trillion in AuM was covered by the Alliance’s target-setting framework.

This year, that number is set to increase. The Alliance’s Third Progress Report, which will go into detail of members’ climate targets and action, will be published on 16 October.

“2050 is a long way off, and all of us who are responsible today may not be around by then. That is why we are asking each member to publish science-based intermediate targets within a year of joining: to keep the accountability with today’s decision- makers,” Bäte said.

In the following session on “Credibility of Net Zero through Integrity Matters Implementation” at CAS, University Pension Plan (UPP) President and CEO, Barbara Zvan, detailed UPP’s net-zero commitments under its Climate Action Plan.

“As a pension plan, we have a fiduciary duty to our current and future members, so we must think long term. Climate change presents a systemic risk to the ecological, societal, and financial systems that the economy relies on, and therefore we rely upon – today and for generations to come,“ she said. Within a year of our launch, UPP developed its Climate Action Plan as a foundational part of its investment strategy.

“We see our objectives as interrelated: our ability to achieve investment returns and provide retirement benefits depends on a stable climate; and in turn, our investments impact and affect the stability of the climate,” Zvan told the audience.

Barbara Zvan, UPP CEO at the Alliance’s AGM. Photo credit 10: Billion Solutions

She said the UN has the platform to help to “harmonise our actions and approaches across borders – so companies have a blueprint, and global investors have clarity and confidence.”

While Allianz and UPP were invited to take the floor at CAS, there were many other Alliance members shortlisted to take part.

The Alliance calls on policymakers to unlock up to $275 trillion net-zero investment opportunity for vast economic opportunity

As New York Climate Week got into full swing, the Alliance published a new discussion paper, “Unlocking Investment in Net Zero,” calling for the removal of key political barriers to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. 

The paper finds vast economic opportunity for transitioning to a 1.5°C scenario, with up to US$275 trillion in climate investment opportunities by 2050, and many grave risks associated with the failure to transition, including up to $4-6 trillion in GDP losses per year by 2050.

In particular, the paper cites that the key decarbonisation technologies are already mature, cost-effective, and deployed at scale. The results are expected to chime with the World Energy Outlook report, to be released next month.

In the paper, the Alliance reveals key political barriers to the net-zero transition and calls on policymakers to remove such obstacles through four concrete policy solutions, including offering robust signals through climate policies and increasing financial support for decarbonisation technologies. 

About the UN-Convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance

The Alliance is convened by UNEP’s Finance Initiative and the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI). The 86 members of the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance have committed i) to transitioning their investment portfolios to net-zero GHG emissions by 2050 consistent with a maximum temperature rise of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels; ii) to establishing intermediate targets every five years; and iii) to regularly reporting on progress.  The Alliance is part of the Race to Zero and supported by WWF and Global Optimism, an initiative led by Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).