Difference between revisions of "LondonAccord:Summary"

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At some £10M of donated research to date, the London Accord is the world’s largest cooperative investment research programme into climate change and other environmental, social and governance issues. Encompassing over 30 concerned investment firms and banks, the City of London Corporation, Gresham College and BP, as well as nearly 2,000 individual members, the community constitutes a good sample of investor sentiment.

The London Accord was founded in April 2005 by Z/Yen Group. The aim of the London Accord is to improve policy making by providing policy makers with investment research on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The slogan of the London Accord is “Towards better policies through shared investment research”. Though the project is global, with contributions from investment researchers in numerous countries, the name originates from the Accord (Agreement) to share research which was struck in London in 2007.

The London Accord was formally launched in March 2007 at Thomson Reuters in Docklands and published its first set of 24 reports on 19 December 2007 before 300 people and the Lord Mayor of London at Mansion House in London. The London Accord report summary of December 2007 said:

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) shows that the world needs to act to avoid disastrous climate change, and act now.
• The Stern Report shows that the overall cost of strong early action is much less than the cost of inaction.
• The International Energy Agency shows the changes in fuel mix and energy usage that are necessary to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations at a safe level.
• The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) shows how much money is required by region and by technology to realise a scenario that achieves stabilisation, showing further that 86% of that investment has to come from the private sector. That equates to private sector investment through 2030 in excess of $600bn per year.

The key findings of the 2007 report were:

• Energy investment is going to become much, much riskier.
• The key governmental focus should be on establishing cap-and-trade markets, then international carbon standards, then regulation; not taxation.
• Forestry is a big unknown – governments should fund research into the real extent of abatement potential and the real costs of forestation.
• Carbon capture and sequestration/storage (CCS) seems an unrealistic investment.

Since 2007, the community has continued to share investment research, now amounting to over 300 reports.