If global finance can step up to the net-zero challenge, governments surely can | Mark Carney

A new alliance of financial institutions is committed to funding the changes necessary to avert climate catastrophe

Six years ago, in Paris, countries reached an historic agreement to limit the global temperature rise to less than 2C, targeting 1.5C. In finance, we launched the task force on climate-related financial disclosures so that companies would disclose their climate-related risks, allowing finance to measure what matters.

Despite these breakthroughs, in the years that followed, action didn't match ambition. Few countries pursued the necessary policies, and business investment in decarbonisation was limited. Too many in finance thought that the climate crisis was someone else's problem.

Mark Carney is UN special envoy on climate action and finance and former governor of the Bank of England