Publications

A few months ago, the European Commission launched a consultation on the revision of the Non-Financial Reporting Directive. The issue at stake is to strengthen the obligation for 6,000 large companies to communicate publicly on how they deal with major societal issues, such as climate change and low-carbon transition. For Romain Hubert of I4CE, reporting must be strengthened in particular on the scenario analyses that companies conduct to identify the risks and opportunities of the transition. But what exactly should they communicate?

For several years now, the idea of using capital requirements for environmental purposes has been gaining ground. But before this can happen, however, several questions about such requirements need to be resolved, particularly as regards the instrument to be used and the objective to be achieved. Michel Cardona from I4CE has released this OpEd available on Euractiv

Climate change dynamics are on a trajectory of intensification which may require the use of new and notable measures. The Paris Agreement recognized the urgency of directing financial flows toward low carbon activities and climate-resilient development. However, the latest special Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report 1 stated that to limit global warming to 1.5oC, the financial resources directed to green activities are by far insufficient and investments on carbon intensive projects are still far too high. At the same time, climate-related risks continue to potentially endanger the stability of the financial sector and they are only marginally addressed by Basel III capital requirements.

The global community needs to transform the world economy to become low-carbon and climate resilient. This is the commitment made by the international community in the Paris Climate Agreement. However, humanity needs to find a way to finance this goal. The European Commission estimates that a funding gap of at least EUR 180bn p.a. exist […]

  It therefore brings risks and opportunities for economic actors, which they must anticipate in order to optimise their strategy in a context of uncertainty. Against this backdrop, the use of scenarios – which are plausible representations of uncertain future states – is very useful in order to better understand the medium- and long-term challenges […]

Since the adoption of the Paris Agreement, financial institutions and other economic actors have taken commitments to ‘align’ their activities with the goals agreed to by national governments in 2015. A growing body of literature from both the research community and practitioners has emerged on ‘alignment’ with the Paris Agreement goals – but to date […]

The financial system has an important role to play in financing the transition of the economy and the drastic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, and must take into account in its activities the risks that climate change poses to it. The French government has begun to mobilize on the subject, as have the Paris financial […]

The One Planet Lab meets for the first time on Monday, March 4, in Paris. But what is this Lab? I4CE, which together with IDDRI is in charge of the scientific secretariat of the Lab, provides some basic answers.

This week, the finance community gathered in Paris for a series of events focusing on climate change and sustainable development. With more than 1500 participants and 100 speakers from the financial community, the week was marked by major events of this week were the UNEP FI’s Global Roundtable and the 4th Climate Finance Day.

The Banque de France and I4CE are forming a partnership with the objective of enhancing the consideration of climate risks and opportunities by the financial sector. This partnership aims to facilitate the exchange of expertise between the two institutions, and more generally the interactions between researchers, financial sector actors, and public authorities. It will also support the work of the Banque de France within the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS) that it launched at the One Planet Summit in December 2017.

To achieve the Paris Agreement’s objective of limiting the rise of global mean temperature to +2°C compared to the preindustrial period, a shift in the allocation of private finance flows from carbon-intensive activities to investments compatible with a 2°C pathway will be necessary. Given the often high expectations around bonds, it is thus important to understand […]

This report presents key findings of the second work package of I4CE’s work program on green bonds, exploring the challenges and opportunities to ensure the environmental integrity the green bond market. It explores the understanding of stakes and challenges related to the environmental integrity of green bonds and suggests potential next steps for both private […]

Following a year of meetings, consultations and discussions, the EU High-Level Group on Sustainable Finance (HLEG) released today its recommendations on the actions needed to make the EU financial system more sustainable. 2017 was a busy year in the sustainable finance community with the publication of the conclusions of the G20 Green Finance study group and the Taskforce on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD) – and concluded with the Paris One Planet Summit. The publication of this report demonstrates the will of policymakers and market actors to move from discussions to actions in 2018 and take concrete steps to help the financial system take into account climate change, as well as broader environmental and social considerations