Greening the Global Financial System

This project aims to ensure private finance accounts for the risks and opportunities of climate change emphasizing the poorest and most vulnerable needs and priorities. Project activities include: (1) leveraging the United Nations (UN) platform to build international support for the strategy of the UN Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance; (2) shaping the international narrative of private finance towards the need for every financial decision to take climate change into account; (3) working with Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) UN entities and permanent missions to develop a clear understanding of the barriers to low-carbon climate resilient investment in developing countries; (4) working with MDBs UN entities and the Conference of Parties (COP) Presidency on a common approach to aligning financial flows with the Paris Agreement; (5) working with UN entities governments the private sector and civil society to deliver on the mandate of the high-level event on Financing for Development in the era of COVID-19 and beyond; and (6) identifying solutions and strengthening commitments to mobilize climate finance particularly for those interventions that reduce poverty and inequalities with an emphasis on gender-based inequalities. Direct beneficiaries of this project include UN member states stakeholders in the financial sector MDBs and UN agencies and departments. The Special Envoy’s focus on these influential actors helps reorient public and private capital flows to mainstream climate action address gender inequalities and respond to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Accordingly there are many indirect beneficiaries from this initiative particularly women and girls.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved quantity quality and comparability of climate-related disclosures by implementing of a common framework built on the Taskforce for Climate-related Financial Disclosure recommendations; (2) improved capacity of the financial sector to measure and manage climate-related financial risks; and (3) enhanced ability of investors in developed and developing countries to identify opportunities in the transition to net zero and report their alignment to net zero which is a mainstreamed approach to a global green recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.