Last week, 17 Republican members of the House of Representative’s, hailing from Florida, Utah and eight other states, introduced a Republican Climate Change Resolution, declaring their commitment, “ to create and support economically viable, and broadly supported private and public solutions to study and address the causes and effects of measured changes to our global and regional climates.” This is clearly not the party line that we’re hearing from the White House, but it echoes other announcements from Republican groups regarding climate change that are becoming both stronger and more frequent.

Recently, the Climate Solutions Caucus, a group in the House created to explore policy options that address climate change, and comprised of equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans, announced their 30th member. Representative Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), co-chair of the caucus, characterized new EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s recent remarks on carbon dioxide emissions not being a primary contributor to climate change as “reckless and unacceptable.” Several weeks earlier, a group of well-respected former Republican administration officials pitched a national carbon tax to the White House. Meanwhile, a bipartisan coalition of governors from Kansas, Arkansas and a 18 other states sent a letter to President Trump urging him to promote and expand the development of wind and solar energy.

These actions illustrate an encouraging trend that Republicans recognize the problem climate change presents, and understand that if they aren’t at the table on the issue, they’ll eventually pay the price. The facts on the ground are undeniable, and voters want answers and action from their elected officials, as shown in poll after poll. Increasing pressure from both the public and private sector – 1,000 companies took out a full-page ad in Politico last week calling for climate action - is forcing Republicans, especially those in districts seeing the devastating effects of climate change firsthand, to confront the issue.

The 17 Republicans who introduced the resolution split dramatically with many members of their party on climate change, and they have shown bold leadership for recognizing the consequences of inaction in this divided political landscape.

While we don’t expect immediate action from this group in terms of legislation, it sends the message that building long term support for climate policy is a priority for a significant subset of House Republicans. Seventeen may not sound like much, but, for reference, perhaps the most well know group in the House, the Freedom Caucus, has just 30 members and has the votes to negate the Republican majority.  If the resolution continues to grow, as we expect it will, it presents the possibility of bipartisan resistance to the Trump assault on environmental regulations that will damage local districts just as a warming climate and more volatile weather are already doing. We’ve seen Republicans speak out on climate change, now we expect that they will back those words up with their votes in Congress. That will be the true test of this resolution.

Sam Williams works on Ceres federal policy program

Ceres: DBL Partners has an ambitious goal of investing in companies that deliver top-tier returns while also yielding environmental and social benefits. From a clean tech perspective – with Tesla, Solar City and Off-Grid Electric among your investments – are you feeling bullish today about achieving these dual objectives and do they require more patience than is typical for a VC firm?

Nancy Pfund: DBL’s mission of investing for both financial and social returns is getting more relevant every day. Investors from pension funds to endowments to family offices, foundations and strategics increasingly have sustainability front and center in terms of their areas of focus. DBL has been a huge beneficiary of this trend, and its investments are helping to show the world that now is the time to create the 21st Century’s iconic corporations designed with 21st century needs like climate change in mind.

In our asset class, venture capital, patience is required no matter what the sector. Taking on incumbents doesn’t happen smoothly or overnight. While clean energy investing has its share of volatility – the ‘solar coaster’ as one example – the progress we are making is undeniable as we move toward higher and higher penetration of renewables, EVs, efficient buildings and, now, energy storage. While the state by state regulatory structure in the United States is an expensive attribute with which companies in this space have to contend, the reward is that when progress is made, the public pays attention and the stories of these pioneers become embedded in a larger swath of our social fabric than just a new app company can usually achieve. This makes for outsized return potential, both in terms of investors and society as a whole.

C: You have predicted a transformation in the energy world in the next decade that will change entire industries, including electric power and transportation. Why are you confident about this transformation moving forward?

NP: The energy transformation is driven both by attractive cost/performance curves and growing consumer awareness and demand. It is this combination that makes it so unstoppable. No longer do consumers need to sacrifice performance for green credentials, and increasingly they not only don’t need to pay more, they may pay less. Going forward, the opportunity will grow to store your power from your solar panels to use at night or as backup, charge your car according to the cheapest rates with the push of a button, and enjoy aesthetic appeal in design from your roof to your windows to your garage: all of this taps into what consumers want today. Just as we have enjoyed radical changes in how we take photos, send emails or texts, make phone calls, listen to music, and share stories, photos and information with one another of the past decade, we are now poised to enjoy these new benefits in our energy lives. Like Rumpelstilskin’s 100 year old slumber, it’s time to wake up! Along the way, we can re-invigorate quality job creation and manufacturing, creating jobs that are accessible to a wide variety of Americans.

C: I’m especially intrigued by DBL Partner’s recent $10.5 million investment in Off-Grid Electric, an off-grid solar company that is entirely focused on Africa. This is DBL’s first investment in Africa. Why Africa and why now, and how did lessons learned from your domestic clean energy investments inform this investment?

NP: Our investment in Off-Grid Electric (OGE) is a logical progression of both DBL’s mission and our investment focus. There are currently over 1.4 billion people who live without electricity, over 600 million are in sub-Saharan Africa. Without fixing this electricity gap, building a middle class and improving quality of life will remain off limits to regions of the world that are slated for some of the highest rates of population growth over the next generation. In 2016, we simply can’t sit by and let this happen – we need collective action and we need to extend the benefits of an entrepreneurial approach to regions that are now ready to launch. At the same time, in bringing electricity to millions of people, we don’t want to, and don’t have to repeat some of our 20th century models that no longer work. Costs of solar and storage and energy efficiency devices are now in reach for many Africans, and can replace dirty and unreliable fossil based solutions. The widespread use of mobile phones in this area of the world also allows for frictionless payment models, another leapfrog effect that allows Africa to define its own future and augment its entrepreneurial profile. These are the reasons to use the lessons we have learned in U.S. clean energy markets and apply them to a new market like Africa: the return potential is significant and the opportunity to shape a more prosperous and healthy future makes for one of the highest impact endeavors of our age.

C: Which other emerging economies are you looking at closely as strong opportunities for clean energy investment and why?

NP: DBL is a small firm, so we don’t yet have the bandwidth to invest all over the world. We are working carefully on Off-Grid Electric and learning the ropes. If, or when, we are successful with this investment, we will build more capacity in our future investment map for other emerging markets. Of course, many of our companies reach these markets, so we are deepening our understanding by working with them even though they are headquartered in the United States. For now, we are moving into other verticals, like agriculture and food/nutrition, to address climate issues in a more diverse manner, while using the geographic diversification of OGE to build our global approach for the future.

C: Seven months ago, 196 countries forged a historic global climate agreement that calls for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to stay below the two degree Celsius threshold. Has this agreement changed the playing field materially and if so, how?

NP: The Paris agreement has played a major role in shaping the way we think and talk about our future. No longer is it a question of should we do something to combat climate change. Now the assumption is that we all need to work together to make this happen. Another big change in Paris was that the role of innovation took center stage. The Paris talks incorporated real world technologies and business solutions that can play a role today rather than just setting far off goals that may or may not be achieved. The recognition of the role of innovation to get ourselves out of the climate dilemma we have created was extremely important. Investors are taking notice and a new crop of innovations and startups are being funded and will continue to be funded in the future.

C: Ceres has a campaign called the Clean Trillion, which seeks to boost global clean energy investment by an additional $1 trillion a year to limit global temperature rise to 2 degrees or less. Investment levels today are tracking at $300-$350 billion a year. What must change to accelerate investments in this space at the pace needed to avoid the worst impacts of global climate change?

NP: In order to fuel more investment to achieve Clean Trillion goals, we need more successes, and more visibility for these successes. We need to celebrate pioneers like Tesla, SunPower, SolarCity, First Solar as well as the new entrants that are sprouting up in all sectors and geographic regions. These are the kinds of companies our young people want to work for, and we need to help raise their visibility and help them out because they are dramatically underfunded compared to century-old incumbents. In reality, nothing attracts investors to a sector more than seeing that others have been able to make good returns. We also need to take more risk in funding the investment managers who want to do this work. Billionaire business leaders play a major role in promoting more investment, of course, but often the next big thing will be found by someone you’ve never heard of and who needs your support. Big philanthropy and business players can help support these smaller players – this is central to how innovation occurs in all sectors. In order to fuel more successes, corporations also need to step up and initiate more pilots and purchases of products and services offered by new entrants, as these are critical moves that allow young companies to “cross the chasm” and attract follow on investments. Temptations to do things in house or allow a “not invented here” philosophy to impinge on working with startups must be consciously managed by corporate partners if they, and all of us, are to be successful.

When 175 leaders signed the historic Paris Agreement on climate change in April, they sent a clear signal to the markets: the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy is inevitable and already underway.

The Paris Agreement’s goals include holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below two-degrees Celsius, and achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of this century.

Many leading investors are now accelerating their efforts to prepare for success in the post-Paris Agreement world.  As CalPERS CEO and Ceres board chair Anne Stausboll put it in her remarks, the agreement is “a powerful global green light” for clean energy investment. Stausboll leads the largest public pension fund in the U.S. with approximately $300 billion in assets. She joins Ceres and a chorus of investors calling on world leaders to invest an additional $1 trillion dollars a year in clean energy to achieve the goals of the agreement.

The signing of the Paris Agreement has provided a fresh boost of momentum to the Ceres Clean Trillion campaign. Investors are now positioning themselves to capture the opportunities of the low-carbon, clean energy future, and manage the risks of continued reliance on high-carbon energy resources such as coal, oil and gas.

@CalPERS @AnneStausboll @CeresNews #ParisAgreement is the global green light to shape tomorrows low carbon economy pic.twitter.com/OWC27HCqRe

— Mindy Lubber (@MindyLubber) April 22, 2016

Investors worldwide continue to join forces through the Carbon Asset Risk initiative to press for improved corporate governance and disclosure on climate risk at carbon-intensive companies.  Most recently, investors with more than $10 trillion in assets declared their support for climate resolutions calling on ExxonMobil and Chevron to stress test their business strategies against a scenario in which global warming is limited to below two-degrees Celsius.  Investors garnered unprecedented voting support for these resolutions, with 38 percent voting in favor of the resolution at ExxonMobil and 41 percent at Chevron.

The results were the highest votes ever for climate resolutions in the history of both oil companies and a clear sign of the mounting investor concerns over the business impacts of climate change.  As former Vice President and Generation Investment Management Chairman Al Gore explained at a Ceres event in May in San Francisco, “carbon assets are vulnerable to being stranded.” The market capitalization for the global coal industry has plummeted in the last five years, Gore pointed out, and “ExxonMobil lost its triple-A bond rating last month for the first time since 1949.”

In May, Ceres also released a groundbreaking new report on the U.S. insurance industry’s exposure to increasingly risky fossil fuel investments. The report makes recommendations to fossil fuel companies and their investors on how to better manage climate risks.

The markets are now waking up to the Paris Agreement’s clear signal: the future is in clean energy, not fossil fuels.  The world leaders, and the investors and companies that move quickly to prepare for the clean energy future will be the best able to capture the opportunities that lie ahead.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

As the world begins implementing the Paris climate agreement, government, business, investor and civil society leaders alike are asking a crucial question: What are the most important tools that can be deployed to accelerate the shift in investment from high-carbon fossil fuels to clean energy?

One clear answer that I have heard again and again: governments can put a price on carbon pollution.  A central problem is that the costs of climate change – such as health impacts, property losses from sea level rise, drought damage to crops and forests, and so on – are not meaningfully factored into the market price of fossil fuels.  These costs instead are spread across society, and generally are not taken into account when decisions on energy supply and infrastructure are made.  Ignoring the costs of carbon pollution makes fossil fuels appear less expensive than they actually are, and tilts the scales against clean energy.

This pervasive failure to account for the true costs of fossil fuels has been favoring the dirty energy resources of the past such as coal, oil and gas, to the disadvantage of the clean energy sources of the future such as solar and wind.  Putting a price on carbon is one of the most effective ways to correct this market distortion and ensure that those who are responsible for the pollution pay for it.  Robust, well-designed carbon pricing systems send a strong market signal that boosts clean energy, especially when coupled with other climate change and clean energy policies and targets.

For these reasons and more, putting a strong price on carbon pollution from fossil fuels is one of the central recommendations in Ceres’ 2014 report that launched the Clean Trillion campaign to expand clean energy investment by an additional $1 trillion per year.

What progress has been made on carbon pricing since 2014?

There is more support from governments, business, and investors worldwide for carbon pricing than ever before.  Currently about 40 countries and more than 20 cities, states, and regions are putting a price on carbon, according to a recent World Bank study.  Over 1,000 businesses use a price on carbon or plan to do so in the next two years – up from only 150 in 2014 – according to CDP.  And more than 400 investors with $24 trillion in assets released a statement last year calling for stable, economically-meaningful carbon pricing.  In addition, at the UN climate talks in Paris in December, governments, businesses and NGOs announced the new Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition to accelerate and expand the adoption of carbon pricing worldwide.

Several countries that have recently adopted carbon pricing are seeing the most explosive growth in clean energy investment – such as Mexico with 114% growth last year and Chile with 157%.  And sub-national governments such as California, northeast U.S. states, and Canadian provinces have moved forward successfully with carbon pricing measures.  However, many large countries, including the U.S., lack a strong national price on carbon.  Enacting national carbon pricing programs in developed countries such as the U.S., and implementing carbon pricing initiatives in major emerging economies such as China, would accelerate the shift in investment from fossil fuels to clean energy, and help to cost-effectively achieve the Paris climate agreement’s objectives.

Robust, well-designed carbon pricing programs are an unparalleled strategy for scaling clean energy investment, and reducing investment in high-carbon energy, at the speed and scale that is needed to limit the risks of climate change and achieve the Clean Trillion goal.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

One key takeaway from the recent Investor Summit on Climate Risk at the UN was the need for speed: the world must accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.  “Where capital goes over the next five years,” UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres said, “is absolutely critical and will determine whether we are actually able to address climate change.”

The 500 investors with $22 trillion in assets that joined forces at the Investor Summit in January heard a clear message: the Paris climate talks were not an end point, but rather a turning point.  Now that all world governments have agreed on a universal, flexible and durable climate change agreement, the stage is set like never before for a massive expansion of investment clean energy worldwide.

In 2015 global investment in clean energy reached a record $329 billion.  The good news: investment in clean energy rose last year despite falling oil and gas prices, and clean energy sources such as wind and solar have now shed their “alternative energy” moniker.  The bad news: the overall level of global investment – $329 billion – is still far short of the Clean Trillion goal – the additional $1 trillion per year in clean energy investment needed to limit global warming to below two degrees Celsius.

In his Summit remarks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon challenged investors “to double – at a minimum – their clean energy investments by 2020.”  Throughout the day leading investors and financial market leaders from the U.S., Europe, China, and India highlighted actions they are taking to expand investment in clean energy in both developed and emerging/developing economies.  For his part, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, chairman of the Financial Stability Board's new Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) focused his remarks on how improving corporate climate risk disclosure “will help drive more financing to projects that reduce carbon pollution.”

Ban Ki-moon asks investors to at least double clean energy investment by 2020 https://t.co/QEBQN1wDns pic.twitter.com/vJudUxovzo

— Christiana Figueres (@CFigueres) January 28, 2016

At the Summit Ceres and Bloomberg New Energy Finance released a new report, Mapping the Gap: The Road from Paris.  The report identifies the $12.1 trillion opportunity, and reasonable finance pathways, for global investment in renewable electric power under a scenario limiting global temperature rise to no more than two degrees Celsius – requiring approximately $5.2 trillion increased investment over business-as-usual projections in this key sector. The report also underscores that extensive and expanding renewable energy investment opportunities are available now, yet in order to increase investment at the scale and speed required further policy actions will be needed.

One action step that many Summit speakers noted could speed up the shift to clean energy is carbon pricing.  Charging those who emit carbon encourages polluters to reduce their emissions, and makes investment in low-carbon, clean energy even more attractive.  Four hundred investors with more than $24 trillion in assets backed carbon pricing in a recent statement, and hundreds of businesses and dozens of governments are using carbon pricing too.  As Christiana Figueres noted at the Summit, advocating for a price on carbon is “the most urgent measure that we can all take in 2016.”

Bold, urgent action by investors, businesses and governments from now to 2020 – expanding clean energy investment, improving climate risk disclosure, and supporting carbon pricing, among many other measures – will provide a crucial boost toward achieving the Clean Trillion and meeting the objectives of the Paris climate agreement.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

The strategy is paying off. Earlier this month, King Mohammed VI turned on the switch to what will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. The $9 billion project in the Sahara Desert is already generating 160 megawatts and as more phases are completed will eventually provide 1.1 million people with power.

This is hardly a North African anomaly. The story is being repeated the world over.

Chile, on the heels of enacting similar clean energy policies as Morocco, is on a path to quadruple renewable energy capacity – to 5,000 megawatts – in just four years. Investments in the country jumped 157 percent last year, to $3.5 billion, much of it for ever-cheaper solar, whose costs are now lower than coal-generated power.

South Africa? Same story. Clean energy investments tripled last year, to $4.5 billion, and the country hopes to produce 18,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2030.

Developing countries are in a global race to scale clean energy. Fueled by climate change concerns, lower technology costs and the lack of energy access for more than one billion people globally, countries are scrambling to enact supportive policies that will catalyze projects and attract much-needed investment capital.

And it’s truly a race. While renewable projects are popping up everywhere – in 2015, for the first time, clean energy investments in developing countries exceeded those in developed countries – it still not nearly at the levels needed if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change.

In order to limit global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius – the goal forged by 195 countries at the recent global climate negotiations in Paris – the world will need to accelerate global clean energy investments in a big way. Right now we’re seeing a few hundred billion dollars being invested every year; that figure needs to jump by an additional $1 trillion a year, over the next three decades, to avoid catastrophic warming, according to the International Energy Agency.

So which developing countries are best positioned to attract more investors and achieve the biggest clean energy growth in the near term?

Investors and energy experts speaking at a recent UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk: Advancing the Clean Trillion – organized by Ceres and the United Nations Foundation – did not mince their words in answering these questions.

India is working hard to open its doors to become, in Prime Minister Nanendra Modi’s words, a “solar super power” in less than a decade. Transparent bidding processes for clean energy projects, use of partial loan guarantees and easy access to land for “plug-and-lay” solar parks are just a few of the steps the government has taken recently to make it easier for investors looking for clean energy deals.

Still, significant obstacles remain, including an unstable currency and high financing costs that are at least double what they are in the US and Europe – meaning that renewable power costs are far more expensive. Until these issues are resolved, achieving its mind-boggling goal of developing 100,000 megawatts of solar by 2022 is unlikely.

China, on the other hand, is widely seen as the “rock star of clean energy.” Investments in the country last year totaled $110 billion, 10 times higher than India’s $10.9 billion and fully a third of the record$329 billion invested globally, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s latest annual tally. The reasons are multifold, including clear, long-term government policies, a relatively stable liquid currency and a wealth of government-controlled sovereign funds to finance projects.

And there are still ample ways for outside institutional investors to participate in China’s clean energy boom, especially in green bonds. China’s newly formed Green Finance Committee will require 2 to 4 trillion yuan of green financing every year ($325 billion to $625 billion), with less than a quarter of that being covered by the government, the rest by institutional investors. Green bonds will surely be a big part of this gargantuan effort. China’s carbon emissions trading system, which is set to go nationwide in 2017, is another big investor opportunity.

Investors should also be paying attention to smaller emerging markets.

Island nations in the Caribbean are moving aggressively to attract investors for solar grids, geothermal and other clean energy projects. A few months ago, St. Kitts and Nevis signed a power purchase agreement to develop 10 megawatts of geothermal energy as an alternative to relying on costly, high-polluting diesel fuel. A second phase of the project will boost the facility’s output to 150 megawatts. Other Caribbean islands are building solar grids for the same reason.

The 1,200 islands that make up the Maldives in the Indian Ocean are also putting strong renewable energy programs in place. Among those taking advantage is the Danish pension fund, Pension Danmark, which has invested $25 million in a water desalination project that will use solar power. The giant pension fund is also investing in a 300-megawatt wind farm in Kenya through the Danish Climate Investment Fund, which is focused entirely on climate investing in developing economies.

It’s easy to quibble that more must be done to make it easier to invest in the emerging markets, but evidence is growing that clean energy is gaining ground and opportunities exist.

But nothing will happen automatically: financing exponentially more projects will require more hard work from both sides – from developing countries, which must have the necessary supportive policies, and investors who must recognize the urgency of opening their wallets when the conditions are right.

Rachel Kyte, CEO of Sustainable Energy for All, summed it up well at last month’s Climate Investor Summit. “The real challenge from 2016 on is achieving scale. South Africa did something amazing last year. Why were they able to go to scale? Why were Chile and Morocco able to go to scale? This is the conversation that’s needed in Sub-Saharan countries, in India, in Mongolia, in Indonesia. What is it going to take for it not to be a belabouring process on a project-by-project basis.”

“Clean energy investment is poised for rapid growth,” wrote the report authors, citing the cost competitiveness of renewables such as solar and wind and escalating investor interest in financing climate solutions. “While the scale of this new investment opportunity is massive, it is dwarfed by the capacity of global financial markets to unleash the needed investment.”

The report, Mapping the Gap: Road from Paris, was announced at the UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk, a gathering of 500 global investors this week organized by Ceres, the United Nations Foundation and the United Nations Office of Partnerships held in the wake of the historic climate agreement last month in Paris.

Among the report’s key highlights:

• Achieving the Paris climate agreement’s goal to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius will require $12.1 trillion investment in new renewable power globally over the next 25 years. This includes an additional $5.2 trillion of investment in wind, solar, geothermal and other zero-emission power sources, or an extra $208 billion a year, above and beyond the $6.9 trillion under business-as-usual projections.
• A majority of this $12.1 trillion in new renewable power generation is expected to go to emerging markets in developing countries.
• The investment surge will require a greatly expanded use of investment vehicles supporting clean energy, including bonds, asset-backed securities and others that commercial financiers, institutional investors and other capital market players can take advantage of.
• To put the renewable energy financing challenge in perspective, the average new annual global investment opportunity for new renewable energy is about the same amount as US customers borrow annually for car loans.

"The clean energy industry could make a very significant contribution to achieving the lofty ambitions expressed by the Paris Agreement,” BNEF Chairman Michael Liebreich said, citing the seven-fold growth in renewable energy installations in the past decade alone. “To do so, however, investment volume is going to need to more than double, and do so in the next three to five years. That sort of increase will not be delivered by business as usual; closing the gap is both a challenge and an opportunity for investors. That is what this report is about.”

The report highlights the critical role of supportive government policies that will enable more renewables investments, including the Paris climate accord’s “ratchet” mechanism, which will help ensure that every country’s commitments to reduce carbon pollution become more ambitious over time.

"There is huge opportunity for expanded clean energy investments today,” said Sue Reid, Vice-President of Climate & Clean Energy at the nonprofit group Ceres. “But to fully bridge the investment gap, policymakers worldwide need to provide stable, long-lasting policies that will unleash far bigger capital flows. The Paris agreement sent a powerful signal, creating tremendous momentum for policymakers and investors to take actions to accelerate renewable energy growth at the levels needed.”

The report’s findings underscore that clean energy financing will soon no longer be considered ‘alternative’ and will begin to more fully resemble other, more established infrastructure sectors such as transportation or real estate, from a financial structure perspective. As clean energy moves firmly into the mainstream, it will inevitably account for expanding and significant shares of infrastructure investors’ portfolios.

"These investments will inevitably find their way into the portfolios of pension funds, insurance companies and other infrastructure investors," said Ken Locklin of Impax Asset Management, who partnered on the research of Mapping the Gap. "Clean energy is a critical part of 21^st infrastructure, so this transformation is fundamental to our investment future."

About Ceres

Ceres is a nonprofit sustainability organization mobilizing business and investor leadership on climate change, water scarcity and other global sustainability challenges. Ceres coordinates the Investor Network on Climate Risk, a network of more than 110 institutional investors with collective assets totaling $13 trillion. For more information, visit www.ceres.org or follow on Twitter @CeresNews.

About Bloomberg New Energy Finance

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) provides unique analysis, tools and data for decision makers driving change in the energy system. With unrivalled depth and breadth, we help clients stay on top of developments across the energy spectrum from our comprehensive web-based platform. BNEF has 200 staff based in London, New York, Beijing, Cape Town, Hong Kong, Munich, New Delhi, San Francisco, São Paulo, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Washington D.C., and Zurich.

For more information on Bloomberg New Energy Finance: about.bnef.com

The United Nations urged global business leaders on Wednesday to double investment in wind and solar energy to $600bn (£400bn) a year by 2020.

One month after the Paris climate agreement, Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, told business leaders they needed to act decisively to hasten the transition away from the fossil fuel economy – or they would put the historic accord in jeopardy.

“I call on the investor community to build on the strong momentum from Paris and seize the opportunities for clean energy growth,” Ban told a UN investors’ meeting in prepared remarks. “I challenge investors to double – at a minimum – their clean energy investments by 2020.”

Global clean energy investment attracted a record $329bn last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

But Ban told the New York meeting that was still not fast enough to build the new green infrastructure that would enable countries to meet the Paris goal of limiting warming to below 2C. He said it was time for investors and fund managers to move from “aspiration to action”.

The gathering today of about 500 investors, organised by the Ceres sustainable business network, was the third stop for Ban and other UN officials this month on an itinerary designed to get business leaders firmly behind the Paris climate agreement, after meetings in Abu Dhabi and Davos.

Under the agreement, 196 governments agreed on the 2C goal, an aspirational goal of 1.5C, and to build a net-zero carbon economy in the second half of the century. Rich countries committed to providing climate finance, and all countries committed to revisiting and strengthening their national climate goals, starting as early as 2018.

But the commitments made at Paris would at best cap warming to 2.7C.

Christiana Figueres, the UN climate chief, who will also address investors on Wednesday, and other leaders, have acknowledged that governments cannot finance the economic transformation, and that mobilising support from business leaders was a critical component of the Paris agreement.

The message to those business leaders underlined at the Davos and Abu Dhabi gatherings and again in New York on Wednesday was that, left unchecked, climate change posed a dangerous risk, and that there were business opportunities in the transition to a clean energy economy.

In Davos, some 750 experts gathering for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum declared a climate catastrophe to be the single biggest threat to the global economy in 2016.

A few days earlier, the annual meeting of the International Renewable Energy Agency in Abu Dhabi was told that doubling renewable energy to 36% of the global energy mix by 2030 would take countries halfway to the Paris goal of limiting warming to 2C, and increase global GDP by up to $1.3tn.

“We had this extraordinary agreement in Paris, we have got points on the horizon,” Rachel Kyte, the UN special envoy for sustainable energy, who will also address investors, said on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi meetings. “Now we have got to get down to the nitty gritty of long term development of the low carbon economy and that is a lot less sexy in some respects than things negotiated last year.”

The International Energy Agency estimated it will cost the global energy industry $16.5tn by 2030 to make the switch from high-polluting power plants to wind and solar electricity generation, required by governments’ commitments at Paris.

But a number of experts, including those of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, say the prices on new wind and solar projects are coming down - and could come down even further if there is a dramatic increase in investment.

Ceres said business leaders needed to start moving now to take advantage of those new greener markets.

“Ultimately, global investment portfolios need to shift far more capital to low-carbon business activity and away from risky high-carbon sectors that may perform poorly in the years ahead,” Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, said in prepared remarks.

The Paris global climate agreement, inked in December, has confirmed that every nation is now on an irreversible path to a low -- perhaps even zero -- carbon economy.

The challenge now is not the certainty, the direction or the ultimate destination of this transformation: it is the speed and how to scale up the opportunities.

For some -- especially those with significant fossil fuel exposure -- it is the risks of stranded assets and finding a way to navigate across what may be uncharted waters of energy diversification and restructuring businesses and economies.

The winds of change from Paris are already shifting policy and financial flows towards ever cleaner and renewable energies and sustainable infrastructure.

The World Resources Institute concludes that the eight largest emitters -- Brazil, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico and the United States -- will double their renewable energy supplies as a result of their action plans, known as Nationally Determined Contributions.

And this is likely to be an underestimate: China, for example, has stated it will peak its emissions around 2030 and generate a fifth of its energy from low carbon sources by 2030.

Many experts expect all this to happen far earlier as a result of the strong signal from Paris, and not just in China, but in many other parts of the world. Among the encouraging signs from all corners of the world:

• Brazil has a 254-megawatt solar farm under construction, SoftBank and other companies have committed billions of dollars to solar in India, and Africa will soon have its largest solar power plant operational in Morocco.
• The United Arab Emirates, whose wealth has been based on fossil fuels, is drawing up a sustainable development plan 'beyond oil.'
• The United Kingdom has announced it will shut down its last coal-fired power station by 2025--currently a quarter of that country's electricity is generated from coal.
• The long-term extension of wind and solar federal tax credits in the U.S. will spur an additional73 billion in clean energy investment by 2020 and just this month American Electric Power agreed to install 900 megawatts of wind and solar in Ohio.
• Goldman Sachs and the New York State Comptroller's office have announced a new2 billion low-carbon index fund.
• Globally, according to new figures from Bloomberg New Energy Finance, almost330 billion in new clean energy investments occurred in 2015, a record high and up six fold from just a decade ago.
• A record42 billion of green bonds were issued last year, up from almost zero in 2007.
• In 2015 clean energy investments in low income countries matched investments in the OECD nations.

These underline some of the many positive shifts occurring. However, if we are to keep a global temperature rise below 2 degrees C, and even better 1.5 degrees C, by the end of the century, trillions of dollars will be needed.

The International Energy Agency estimates that $68 trillion will be invested in energy up to 2040. Clean energy, energy efficiency and low or zero emission vehicles need to take an ever increasing slice of this market if the promise of Paris is to be realized.

Every sphere of the investment community needs to get on board. Of the $329 billion invested in clean energy in 2015, just under $200 billion was asset financing for utility-scale projects such as wind farms, solar parks and biomass plants. The next largest chunk, $67 billion, was spending on rooftop and other small-scale solar projects. Venture capital raised for clean energy was just under $6 billion.

While these numbers may sound impressive, they are still precious little compared to the trillions of dollars that are needed from institutional investors every year to accelerate clean energy at the levels necessary to prevent dangerous climate change.

But, just as importantly in the wake of the Paris deal, investors should also be elevating their focus of better managing climate risks.

The kind of carbon foot-printing analysis done by the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS), the United States' largest public pension fund, is a case in point.

Its analysis showed that 80 companies in its 10,000-company portfolio accounted for fully half of the $300 billion fund's total carbon footprint.

As CalPERS' Investment Director of Global Governance, Anne Simpson noted in Paris: "This study means we can be laser-focused on where to take our engagement. We want the underlying companies in our portfolio to be aligned with the transition to a low-carbon economy."

Investors, nationally and globally, should also be pressing for stronger company disclosure of the climate risks they are facing in order to better evaluate which companies are well positioned -- or poorly positioned -- to compete in the emerging low-carbon global economy.

Working with Ceres, investors successfully petitioned the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to require companies to provide such disclosure, but the quality of the disclosure to date is still far short of meeting the SEC's guidance.

Investors also need to form new alliances with progressive venture capitalists, countries, corporations and banks, both private and multilateral, in order to de-risk investments in clean energy and sustainable, low carbon infrastructure.

The actions needed are legion, but so too are the rewards for investors and companies who make the shift early and embed the transition rapidly.

Paris has built upon emerging shifts towards a cleaner, greener and far smarter development path for the 21st century. It has sent a clear, unequivocal and determined low carbon signal to markets and economic sectors everywhere: The course is irreversible, but the pace and breadth must now be the focus.

It is time for investors to get down to the serious business of transforming the bold ambition of the new global agreement into a low-carbon economic reality that benefits all nations and people.

Christiana Figueres is Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and Mindy Lubber is president of the nonprofit sustainability group Ceres that, along with the United Nations Foundation, is organizing the Jan. 27 UN Investor Summit on Climate Risk.

On Dec. 12, 2015, the world’s governments agreed to a universal, legally-binding agreement that sets out ambitious goals to tackle climate change, including:

• Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to no more than 1.5°C

• Reducing net greenhouse gas emissions to zero in the second half of this century

While there are many challenges ahead to achieving these objectives, the Paris agreement provides a critical shot in the arm for clean energy investment globally. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted at the end of the climate talks, “Markets now have the clear signal they need to unleash the full force of human ingenuity and scale up investments that will generate low emissions and resilient growth.”

Three outcomes of the Paris climate talks are particularly significant to expanding global investment in clean energy:

First, 187 nations, representing 98 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, have now submitted national climate commitments. Actualizing these commitments and limiting warming to below 2 degrees Celsius will create a multi-trillion dollar clean energy investment opportunity; the International Energy Agency has estimated the figure at $16.5 trillion. Over the next several years, governments will take steps to translate their national climate commitments into specific policies that will catalyze the necessary investments. For example, the U.S. Environment Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan, vehicle efficiency standards, and tax credits for wind and solar that were extended last month are all key measures that will help accelerate the shift to clean energy.

It’s important to keep in mind that the national commitments submitted in Paris create a floor, not a ceiling: the agreement includes a one-way ratchet, with nations required to update and elevate their climate commitments every five years.

Second, the Paris agreement calls for “finance flows consistent with a pathway towards low greenhouse gas emissions and climate resilient development.” Specifically, governments have agreed to mobilize at least $100 billion in public and private finance for clean energy and climate resilience projects from 2020 to 2025 and agreed to go beyond this level after 2025. (See this helpful World Resources Institute summary for more details). Deployment of these funds help leverage more opportunities for private clean energy and climate financing.

Third, the Paris climate talks recognize that national government actions need to be buttressed by bold private sector action. In advance and during the climate talks, hundreds of global investors, businesses and capital market actors made new announcements on climate change and clean energy. Three examples:

Bill Gates and other business icons announced the Breakthrough Energy Coalition to accelerate and expand R&D investment aimed at scaling up clean energy.

The Financial Stability Board announced it was establishing an industry-led disclosure task force on climate-related financial risks under the chairmanship of Michael Bloomberg. The Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures is charged with developing voluntary, consistent climate-related financial risk disclosures for use by companies in providing information to lenders, insurers, investors and other stakeholders.

New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli announced an additional $1.5 billion commitment to sustainable investments and the launch of a new $2 billion low-carbon index fund in coordination with Goldman Sachs. (See summary of other COP21-Paris Finance Day announcements here).

Reaction to the Paris agreement has also been strongly positive. “The ambitious agreement contains many of the market signals that investors have been calling for and what investors need to accelerate the transition to a thriving, clean energy economy,” Anne Stausboll, CEO of CalPERS, the nation’s largest public pension fund, said.

Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance put it even more bluntly: “Paris is the world’s economy serving divorce papers” to the fossil fuel industry. “Which sensible businessperson or investor can ignore the clear signal?” Good question!

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

This blog originally appeared on EcoWatch.

The UN climate conference now underway in Paris represents a critical opportunity to limit the risks of climate change and accelerate the shift to clean energy.  That’s why Ceres and leading investors and businesses are in Paris making the economic case for a strong global climate agreement. Together, we are focused on the dual objectives of addressing climate risks by ratcheting down reliance on high carbon resources, on the one hand, while simultaneously seizing the Clean Trillion opportunity tied to clean energy investment and transition, on the other.

Record investor and business support

As the Paris negotiations officially have kicked off, over 400 investors with more than $24 trillion in assets released a statement calling for an ambitious global agreement on climate change.  That’s the largest-ever group of investors calling for strong government action on climate change.  Investors are publicizing their clean energy investments through the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change’s Low-Carbon Investment Registry, and announcing other actions they are taking on climate change through the new Investor Platform for Climate Actions.

In addition, more than 1,600 companies have signed Ceres’ Climate Declaration; 147 companies have signed the White House Act on Climate Business Pledge; six major U.S. banks released a statement calling for a strong climate deal; and the CEOs of 14 major food companies have launched a high profile climate pledge.  And thousands of businesses worldwide are joining forces with the We Mean Business Coalition in support of climate policy action.

Tackling climate change is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity

Combating climate change requires rapid, large-scale shifting from fossil fuels to clean energy.  This transition to clean energy is a multi-trillion dollar opportunity.  To limit warming to below two degrees Celsius – a key goal of the Paris climate talks – the International Energy Agency estimates the world needs to invest an additional $40 trillion in clean energy by 2050.  That's slightly more than an additional $1 trillion invested in clean energy – a “Clean Trillion” – per year for the next 35 years.

The Paris climate talks are catalyzing important momentum toward the Clean Trillion goal.  The national climate plans that almost every nation in the world has submitted to the UN can spur $13.5 trillion in investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies between 2015 and 2030, according to a recent IEA analysis.

Much more action needed after Paris

A strong Paris climate agreement will accelerate the transition to clean energy, but much more action will be needed in the years ahead to limit warming to below two degrees Celsius.  In the months after Paris, the most important single step that the U.S. can take to lead on climate change is to implement the EPA Clean Power Plan, the first-ever nationwide limits on carbon pollution from electric power plants.  This US plan for boosting electric sector clean energy transition is a critically important step for the climate and the economy, as recognized by leading voices in the business community -- more than 365 companies and investors announced their support for the plan in a July 2015 letter coordinated by Ceres.

As aptly noted by Letitia Webster, senior director of global sustainability at VF Corporation, a North Carolina-based apparel company whose brands include The North Face, Timberland and Reef, “The Clean Power Plan will enable us to continue to invest in clean energy solutions and further advance our greenhouse gas reduction goals.”

And as Mars, Inc. Global Sustainability Director Kevin Rabinovitch points out, "It's going to take action from all of us … For businesses like Mars, that means delivering on efficiency and renewable energy; for the EPA and state governors, that means developing and delivering against initiatives like the Clean Power Plan.”

Both VF Corporation and Mars are represented as part of the delegation of business and investor leaders that Ceres is bringing to the Paris climate talks to support strong climate policy action. By backing a strong Paris climate agreement and the EPA Clean Power Plan, leading investors and businesses are making a smart business decision.  They are supporting policies that will expand investment in the clean energy technologies that the world needs to stabilize the climate and promote a sustainable economy and world.

To learn more about Ceres plans for COP21 in Paris, and what actions leading investor and business leaders have been taking on the road through Paris click here.

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My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox, and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

Hundreds of investors, businesses, and governments have recently announced major new commitments to tackle climate change, adding a fresh boost to efforts to expand investment in clean energy by an additional $1 trillion per year – the Clean Trillion.

More than 150 governments have now submitted national climate action plans to the UN ahead of the UN climate change conference in Paris in December.  The climate plans have the potential to unleash $13.5 trillion in investment in energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies between 2015 and 2030, according to a new IEA report.  However, the current climate plans do not go far enough to limit warming to below 2 degrees Celsius, as the World Resources Institute (WRI) found in a recent analysis.

To move governments to adopt stronger climate plans that will limit warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, the We Mean Business Coalition, an alliance of organizations including Ceres who are working with the world’s most influential businesses, is calling for the Paris climate deal text to include at least three key elements: (1) a long-term carbon pollution reduction target (“a global, quantifiable emissions target to stay below 2 degrees Celsius”), (2) a system to ratchet global commitments every five years, and (3) support for carbon pricing to unleash the potential for markets to boost the shift to a low-carbon economy.

Sub-national governments such as states and cities are acting too.  To cite just one globally significant example of state action, California adopted sweeping new legislation in September to dramatically reduce greenhouse emissions and boost renewable energy, and also re-adopted its groundbreaking Low Carbon Fuel Standard that will promote clean energy alternatives to oil.

In addition to government action, there is more business and investor leadership on climate action than ever before.  Earlier this month, the White House announced that 81 companies have signed the White House Act on Climate Business Pledge.  And investor groups including Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk – collectively comprising 384 investors with $24 trillion in assets – recently underscored their support for an ambitious global agreement on climate change, as reflected in a full-page ad in the Financial Times.

Inspiring: In today's @ftasia, a full page ad by investors advocating rapid shift to low carbon and resilience #COP21 pic.twitter.com/wGexe1RAzW

— Christiana Figueres (@CFigueres) October 13, 2015

Among the dozens of other business and investor announcements in recent weeks, here are three highlights:

• Ten CEOs from global food companies issued a letter coordinated by Ceres calling for strong action on climate at COP21.

• Six major U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Well Fargo - issued a joint statement released by Ceres calling for a strong global climate agreement.

• 365 companies and investors organized by Ceres have announced their support for the EPA's Clean Power Plan and corresponding state implementation.

These developments provide tremendous momentum for a strong Paris climate agreement, but it is clear that much more will remain to be done after Paris.  To limit warming to below two degrees Celsius, the world needs to invest an additional $44 trillion in clean energy by 2050 – more than an additional $1 trillion – a Clean Trillion – per year for the next 35 years.  To avoid the worst impacts of climate change, investors, businesses and governments must act to close the clean energy investment gap.  Achieving the Clean Trillion must stay at the top of the world’s agenda as we move toward the December climate negotiations in Paris, and well beyond.

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We welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please contact Sue Reid at reid@ceres.org (@CleanPowerSue) or Chris Fox at fox@ceres.org (@ChristopherNFox). For the latest developments, follow the campaign on Twitter: @CleanTrillion.

First, on June 8 the Group of Seven (G7) nations – U.S., Japan, Germany, U.K., France, Italy and Canada – committed to building a low-carbon global economy.  Among other measures, the G7 pledged to:

• Forge a new global climate change agreement by December 2015 to achieve the goal of limiting warming to below two degrees Celsius;
• Achieve a “decarbonization of the global economy” by making deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions – including 40-70% reductions by 2050 compared to 2010;
• Provide and mobilize climate finance from public and private sources to demonstrate progress toward the goal of mobilizing $100 billion in climate finance per year by 2020

The G7 declaration is an important signal to investors and businesses worldwide that our economic future will be powered by clean energy, not fossil fuels. As economist Jeffrey Sachs observed, “The G7 finally stated clearly what scientists have been urging for years: humanity must not merely reduce, but must end, CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels this century.”

Meanwhile, China submitted its formal contribution to the United Nations climate change talks in June. Among other measures, China committed to:

• Achieve the peaking of carbon dioxide emissions around 2030 and making best efforts to peak early;
• Lower carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 60% to 65% from the 2005 level;
• Increase the share of non-fossil fuels in primary energy consumption to around 20%

To achieve the latter goal, China will need to deploy 800 to 1,000 gigawatts (a gigawatt is equivalent to one large power plant) in new zero-emissions power (such as wind and solar) – that is approximately the same size as the total current electricity generation capacity in the U.S.

Third, President Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced on June 30 a range of climate change measures including that each nation would get 20% of its electricity by 2030 from renewable sources, not including hydropower. That would require a tripling of U.S. renewable energy output and a doubling for Brazil – a tremendous new opportunity for clean energy investment.

Fourth, in one of the most new significant developments in the decades-long fight against climate change, on June 18 Pope Francis unveiled his Encyclical Letter Laudato Si (Praise Be): On The Care of Our Common Home (full text here). The Pope, the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics worldwide, lent the full authority of his office to accelerating the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy. “There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced,” Pope Francis states, “for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.”

Finally, the White House hosted a Clean Energy Investment Summit in June.  “America’s energy future is in cleaner, cheaper renewable energy,” Vice President Biden said in his remarks. At the Summit the White House announced $4 billion in new commitments by institutional investors to address climate change. Members of Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) were among those making new investments. For example, a consortium of investors committed to build a new nonprofit investment intermediary that identifies, screens, and assesses high-potential companies and projects for commercial investment that could also produce profitable solutions to climate change. This consortium is initially allocating a total of $1.2 billion (including $600 million from two INCR Members - $500 million from University of California’s Office of the Chief Investment Officer and $100 million from TIAA-CREF).

These June announcements are very important steps forward, but they are only a start. They do not guarantee the world will take action at the speed and scale needed to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  Now, in the critical months leading up to the UN climate conference in Paris in December 2015, is the time for citizens worldwide to join forces – harnessing our power as voters, consumers, employees, and shareholders – to urge governments, businesses, and investors alike to act boldly on climate change and accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox, and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

At the Ceres Conference in San Francisco, over 500 participants heard from leaders across sectors who are helping to accelerate the shift from fossil fuels to clean energy.

• EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy called tackling climate change one of America’s greatest economic opportunities.  She thanked the 200+ businesses that joined together to support the EPA Clean Power Plan and the 1,400+ companies that have signed Ceres’ Climate Declaration and gave a rousing address that is sure to spur further action.

• Representatives from CalPERS & CalSTRS, two of the largest pension funds in the U.S., described how investors worldwide are joining forces through the Carbon Asset Risk Initiative to press energy companies to change their business strategies to prepare for a low-carbon future.


• Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s Ethan Zindler and Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Ray Wood reminded everyone that renewable energy sources such as solar and wind are cost-competitive today with fossil fuels in a number of markets. This is a game-changing development that is propelling further clean energy investment that, in turn, leads to even lower costs – a virtuous cycle indeed.


• IKEA’s Rob Olson noted that businesses can help achieve the Clean Trillion goal – while also enhancing their own bottom lines – by purchasing renewable energy and supporting climate and clean energy policy action, including measures to promote more efficient transportation. In fact, IKEA has committed to 100% renewable energy.


• Rocky Mountain Institute’s Amory Lovins explained how innovative new clean energy, transportation and energy efficiency technologies are disrupting global markets and enabling the world to move to a fossil fuel-free future – with a feasible pathway for getting off of oil globally by 2050.


• NRG Home CEO Steve McBee pointed out that consumers are now demanding clean energy and smart electric power companies are changing their business models in response.  “Central service models are breaking down,” McBee noted, “in music, shopping, taxis and now in energy.”

This Clean Trillion momentum was bolstered only days later by the Business & Climate Summit and Climate Finance Summit in Paris. There, Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk and investor group partners launched a new online platform that for the first time records a wide range of actions on climate change and clean energy being undertaken by the global investor community. The Investor Platform for Climate Actions provides a single location for insights on how investors are helping accelerate the shift to the low carbon economy.

And last week, ahead of the meeting of G7 Finance Ministers in Germany, 120 investor CEOs with $12 trillion in assets released an open letter to finance ministers urging them to support the inclusion of a long-term emissions reduction goal in the international climate agreement due to be sealed in Paris in December. This is the first time a global coalition of investors has called for a long-term emissions reduction goal to be included in the Paris agreement. The letter was coordinated by IIGCC in Europe, Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) in North America, IGCC in Australia/New Zealand, ASrIA’s Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC) and the PRI.

All of this Clean Trillion activity comes not a moment too soon, and bodes well for ensuring that an international agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions will be backstopped by robust – and essential – clean energy investment and action.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox, and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion.

Last week, members of the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change – including Ceres’ Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR) – released a new guide aimed at helping investors develop and fine-tune strategies that address climate change.

Institutional investors – including pension funds, insurers, foundations, family offices and university endowments – are stewards of trillions of dollars in assets.  Action by investors will be critical to tackling climate change, reducing investor exposure to carbon asset risk, and achieving the Clean Trillion goal of an additional $1 trillion invested annually in clean energy.

Climate Change Investment Solutions: A Guide for Asset Owners offers practical steps to manage the risks of climate change and capture opportunities as the world transitions to a clean energy economy.  It is particularly geared toward investment professionals – chief investment officers, investment committee members, portfolio managers, advisors – and recommends action in four areas:

• Strategic review – actions to integrate climate change into investment beliefs and investment policies.

• Asset allocation – actions for measuring and managing the risks and opportunities of climate change within existing asset allocations, and through evolving asset allocation over time.

• Mitigation – actions to reduce the carbon intensity and risk of existing portfolios – and decrease exposure to carbon asset risk – along with opportunities to invest in low carbon, clean energy and energy efficient assets.

• Adaptation – actions to reduce the vulnerability of existing assets to the physical impacts of climate change as well as to invest in adaptation measures critical to economic stability.

The guide has garnered attention from investment, business, and government leaders worldwide. On Earth Day, the United Nations and others spread the word by sharing the guide via Twitter:

The good news is that many investors are already taking action on climate change. For example, 367 investors with over $24 trillion in assets have signed the Global Investor Statement on Climate Change urging policymakers to forge an ambitious climate change agreement at the UN talks in Paris in December.  Others have made specific commitments to reduce their exposure to carbon asset risk and/or to increase their investments in clean energy.

Yet despite the growing number of investors taking action, there are many investors that have not yet focused on climate change as an investment risk and opportunity.  This new guide is an important resource for broadening the base of investor action and seizing the Clean Trillion opportunity.

My Ceres colleagues and I welcome your thoughts and questions on Ceres’ Clean Trillion campaign. Please feel free to connect with me at fox@ceres.org or on twitter @ChristopherNFox, and follow Clean Trillion on twitter @CleanTrillion