by Sue Reid

In all climate finance discussions there is meaningful representation from the Global South. Strong investor networks have been established in Latin America and Africa and connected into the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change. Existing investor initiatives are also each expanded to include meaningful -- and fully empowered -- representation from the Global South.

We continued to ratchet ambition in these existing groups and we’ve consolidated and simplified the pathway to make it easier for other investors to align their portfolios with a 1.5ºC trajectory.

There has been such a significant shift in investor thinking, that in many jurisdictions it has become illegal to be a corporate actor or investor without having adopted the highest level of science-based climate action.

Meanwhile, in the investment community, long-term thinking and planning has become the norm, in many cases thanks to new regulatory mandates - for example, the TCFD was made mandatory in the early 2020s. The "valuation gap" is fully bridged, with the actual societal costs of polluting high-carbon energy built into cost ledgers. This further illuminates the benefits of clean/zero-carbon alternatives.

Climate finance proponents are focussed on scaling capital flows into climate solutions (both mitigation and adaptation and resilience) rather than worrying about who's not in the room, and deliver greater/faster impacts as a result.