In December 2016 Dr Alan Finkel presented his preliminary report on the Independent Review into the Future of the Security of the National Electricity Market.
Click here to read the submission made by Alan Pears in response to the report. Alan is a Senior Industry Fellow at RMIT University and a member of the Climate Alliance board of advisors. Alan’s submission focuses on the role of energy efficiency.
Dr Alan Finkel's preliminary report can be found here.
For over a decade, The Global Risks Report has focused attention on the evolution of global risks and the deep interconnections between them. The Report has also highlighted the potential of persistent, long-term trends such as inequality and deepening social and political polarisation to exacerbate risks associated with, for example, the weakness of the economic recovery and the speed of technological change.
These trends came into sharp focus during 2016, with rising political discontent and disaffection evident in countries across the world. The highest-profile signs of disruption may have come in Western countries – with the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union and President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election – but across the globe there is evidence of a growing backlash against elements of the domestic and international status quo.
Thirteen leading international asset owners and five asset managers with over £2 trillion under management launched the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) today to better understand how the transition to a low-carbon economy affects their investments. The TPI will assess how individual companies are positioning themselves for the transition to a low-carbon economy through a public, transparent online tool. The heads of funds involved launched the Initiative this morning (11th January) at the opening of the stock market at the London Stock Exchange.
Click here for the press release.
The report outlines a set of recommendations for voluntary, decision-useful, climate-related disclosures to be made as part of mainstream financial filings. The recommendations will help organisations identify and disclose information needed by investors, lenders, and insurance underwriters to appropriately assess and price climate-related risks and opportunities.
The recommendations are issued for public consultation which is open until February 12, 2017.
The Task Force developed four widely adoptable recommendations on climate-related financial disclosures that are applicable to organisations across sectors and jurisdictions. Importantly, the Task Force’s recommendations apply to financial-sector organisations, including banks, insurance companies, asset managers, and asset owners. Large asset owners and asset managers sit at the top of the investment chain and, therefore, have an important role to play in influencing the organisations in which they invest to provide better climate-related financial disclosures.
The Task Force structured its recommendations around four thematic areas that represent core elements of how organisations operate: governance, strategy, risk management, and metrics and targets.
The four overarching recommendations are supported by recommended disclosures that build out the framework with information that will help investors and others understand how reporting organisations think about and assess climate-related risks and opportunities. In addition, there is guidance to support all organisations in developing climate-related financial disclosures consistent with the recommendations and recommended disclosures. The guidance assists preparers by providing context and suggestions for implementing the recommended disclosures.
Click here to download the full report. The TCFD website has additional reports relating to the project: Public Consultation, Implementing the Recommendations and a Technical Supplement.
The Australian Energy Market Operator insists it was completely unaware about the nature of the fault ride-through settings on wind farms in Australia, even though the issue had been addressed and resolved in Europe a decade ago.
In the third, and most detailed, report into South Australia’s state-wide blackout in September, AEMO says it did not know that wind farms built in Australia had limits on their “fault-ride through” settings, which govern whether a wind farm can continue operating with multiple network faults of the type that occurred when tornadoes tore down three major transmission lines.
In a hugely important development for the pensions industry, two leading independent UK barristers, including pensions expert Keith Bryant QC, have confirmed that pension fund trustees who fail to consider climate risk could be exposing themselves to legal challenge.
The opinion concludes that where climate risks carry material financial implications for fund performance, trustees must take those risks into account in investment decisions. Its authors state that this is “beyond reasonable argument” and that failing to do this “would not be a proper exercise of [trustees’] powers.”
You can read the opinion here.
For a summary of the opinion and what it means for pension fund trustees and pension fund members, please see ClientEarth’s briefing here.
