Paris COP21: Global Financiers Hop Aboard the Zero-Carbon Bandwagon

Outside the conference hall where the Paris climate negotiations are taking place, a large crowd gathered in the bright sun on Friday morning, chanting for an end to government subsidies for fossil fuels. Yards away, a meeting of financiers and bankers got under way in which a central demand was for, well, much the same thing. Something strange has happened here. The masters of the financial universe are out in force insisting that, though they may not be waving placards or chanting slogans, they are part of the solution. Free markets could deliver a zero-carbon world, they say. And Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England and a leading player in the global financial system, announced the creation of a task force to develop a carbon-disclosure system that could force companies to reveal how heavily their businesses are invested in fossil fuels. He said it could become standard business practice around the world — carbon footprinting for financiers.
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