FirstFT: Carney-led finance coalition has up to $130tn funding committed to hitting net zero

The Mark Carney-led coalition of international financial companies signed up to tackle climate change has up to $130tn of private capital committed to hitting net zero emissions targets by 2050.

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (Gfanz) — which is made up of more than 450 banks, insurers and asset managers across 45 countries — said it could deliver as much as $100tn of financing to help economies transition to net zero over the next three decades.

“We now have the essential plumbing in place to move climate change from the fringes to the forefront of finance so that every financial decision takes climate change into account,” said Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England who has chaired Gfanz since its launch in April.

Investment managers accounted for $57tn of the assets, with $63tn coming from banks and $10tn from asset owners such as pension funds. Among the finance groups signed up to Gfanz are HSBC, Bank of America and Santander.

Thanks for reading FirstFT Europe/Africa. Here’s the rest of today’s news — Gary

Five more stories in the news

1. Coal miners profit from energy market turmoil A small group of miners is emerging as big winners from the global energy crunch that has pushed the price of thermal coal, which is burnt in power stations to generate electricity, to record levels.

2. Wellcome director resigns as science adviser Prominent member Sir Jeremy Farrar has left the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) to concentrate on his work as director of the Wellcome Trust, the country’s largest medical charity.

3. Poor UK military procurement ‘wastes billions’ Procurement practices at the UK Ministry of Defence are “broken” and have repeatedly resulted in billions of pounds of taxpayer money being wasted, a parliamentary committee has claimed.

4. Facebook to shutter facial recognition system The social media platform will shut its facial recognition system and delete data collected from 1bn users that has been used to identify them in photos posted on the platform, citing growing regulatory scrutiny of the field.

Do you agree with Facebook’s decision to shutter its facial recognition system? Tell us in our latest poll.

5. UK seeks legal advice over N Ireland protocol The UK government is seeking to appoint new legal advisers in preparation for a possible overhaul of Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trading arrangements. The move will fuel expectations that ministers are preparing to try to fundamentally rewrite the deal.

COP26 digest

• Resource-rich Gulf states pledge to cut emissions but want to keep oil flowing to fund the transition, saying “we can’t just switch off the tap”.

• A commitment to halt the destruction of the world’s great forests was signed by more than 100 leaders yesterday, but critics voiced doubts as to how the plan would be enforced.

• President Xi Jinping is being pushed to accelerate China’s target for starting to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 2030 to 2025, said UK prime minister Boris Johnson.

• The US and EU officially launched their global methane pledge, announcing that more than 100 countries had committed to slashing emissions.

Explore the FT Global Gallery: COP26 Edition, a digital exhibition that reflects the themes and goals of this year’s high-stakes summit featuring multimedia interpretations of FT journalism, thought-provoking films, interactive data visualisation and exclusively commissioned art.

The day ahead

Winner of Booker Prize for Fiction announcement To judge the Booker Prize this year, the FT’s Horatia Harrod had to read 158 books in four months, or about a book a day. Horatia spoke about the experience on the FT Weekend podcast. Listen here.

Federal Reserve policy meeting The Fed will announce today a scaling back of its enormous pandemic-related stimulus programme amid uncertainty over persistent inflationary pressures and whether the US central bank will need to raise interest rates sooner than expected.

What else we’re reading

Where does all the climate finance money go? Rich governments have pledged $100bn to help poorer countries reduce emissions. But there is no agreement on how to spend the funds.

Russia’s excess mortality tally jumps The country has recorded 753,000 excess deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, one of the highest tolls in the world, according to analysis of government data by the Financial Times that highlights the stark impact of the disease as Moscow imposes fresh restrictions to curb its spread.

Law firms in Hong Kong in the line of fire The Mayer Brown controversy over the Tiananmen monument case highlights a dilemma for multinationals as Beijing demands more ideological loyalty from its commercial sector, writes Primrose Riordan.

​​Into the metaverse: how sci-fi shapes our attitudes to the future From The Terminator to Japanese manga, powerful narratives drive fear or reassurance around tech. But the point of science-fiction — like all fiction — is not to predict the future, but to teach us what it really means to be human in a changing world, writes Madhumita Murgia.

Film

Kumail Nanjiani, the Pakistan-born actor and comic, has a new title: action figure. He is delighted that his role in Marvel’s Eternals has been immortalised as a tiny toy — even though racial politics still weigh heavily. FT film critic Danny Leigh sat down with Nanjiani to discuss the porous line between life and art, the actor’s love of superheroes and his new physique.