Today was my first day ay COP25 which is the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I am an observer representing Texas Impact. I currently serve on their Board of Directors.
Along with several others from Texas Impact, I attended a meeting with diplomats working in the U. S. State Department. The other attendees were all Americans who were unhappy with language in the document which is being negotiated. Particularly Article 6 (6.2 and 6.4) which has been revised to omit references to indigenous people. There were folks from the Navaho nation, Alaska, Guam and Hawaii who all were dissatisfied and feeling left out – again. The folks from the State Department were polite and sympathetic but did not offer much in the way of solutions. One bright note, a woman from Minnesota explained that her state started action in 2007. Bipartisan action which has continued thru several different governors from both parties. The state has the support of the large utility Excel and together they have achieved excellent progress.
I attended a portion of a side event, Global Trends in Climate Legislation and Litigation: Enhancing Resilience and Adaption. I came in late, but the Q and A was quite lively; several folks stated they serve in the Parliament of South America or Mexico or Costa Rico. Finally, one of the panelists asked for a show of hands of the folks who served in their country’s Parliament. About 30 people raised their hands, including several of the panelists. This was about one third of the whole audience.
The session most interesting to me was on Investor Agendas. There were at least three individual speakers and two panels with four or five speakers each. The first panel was Peter Damgaard Jensen, CEO at PKA, James Bevan, CIO at CCLA, Emma Howard Boyd, Chair at the Environment Agency Pension Fund, and Divya Mankikar, investment manager at CalPERS, as well as the moderator who handled this very well and summarized statements, Sagarika Chatterjee. Their topic was investor commitments to align with the Paris Agreement. These panelists manage huge sums of money, investment portfolios. In many cases they will be one of the companies’ largest shareholders. They have the ability to talk strategy with senior management. Most have analyzed their portfolios to determine which companies they hold are “brown,” that is “not green.” They can and are influencing some of the companies to change their operations to become more green.
The second panel moderated by Paul Simpson, CEO at CDP, was Helena Fiestas, BNP Paribas, Michael Barbara, New Forest (Australia), David Cumming Avila, and Jack Ernest, CEO CalSTRS. This group also is working with the companies in their portfolios. The most impressive thing I heard was that CalSTRS, which is a large stockholder of Duke Energy, received a commitment from Duke to be carbon zero by 2050. Ms. Fiestas from BNP stated that they are finding inconsistencies with what some companies are telling them, and their actions and they are holding the companies accountable. She stated that most of the times the U.S. enforces companies to report properly but this time it is the E.U.!