The Bonn Climate Change Conference saw limited progress resolving open issues related to Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which aims to incentivize international cooperation in mitigating climate change through carbon credit...more
Introduction - With the adoption by 196 parties of the Paris Agreement in December 2015, legally binding international climate change arrived. The Paris Agreement requires increasingly aggressive five-year cycles climate...more
Recognising the threat of climate change and the importance of sustainable development, Singapore has made a commitment to establishing a robust framework of environmental and climate change laws and regulations – an...more
Akin is participating at COP28 and providing regular updates from the conference. COP28 - December 5, 2023 Recap - - A draft of the first Global Stocktake (GST), the document that assesses countries’ progress toward...more
On October 26, 2023, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) published a report with recommendations for linking climate-related actions taken by non-state actors (NSAs) to the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) established by...more
According to an annual report published on October 18, 2023, members of the Net Zero Asset Owner Alliance (NZAOA) have stepped up their commitments by setting new intermediate targets in four key areas, i.e., sub-portfolio...more
The 28th Conference of the Parties (COP28) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has commenced this week in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and will run through December 12, 2023. The UAE is...more
Two recent studies show that, by the end of 2023, United States carbon emissions will decrease, despite an expansion in the overall economy of about 2.5 percent. That is, according to the United States Energy Information...more
On September 27, 2023, six “Portuguese young people” were heard by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in a lawsuit against 32 European governments, including all EU member states, alleging that their failure to act...more
According to the 2022 World Energy Outlook of the International Energy Agency, the industry sector generates 45 percent of the total direct emission from end-users and it will be extremely difficult to reach net zero without...more
On September 5, 2023, the Corporate Leaders Group Europe (CLG Europe) published a position paper urging the European Union to cut its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 90% by 2040, and asked EU member states to...more
Each year during the regular session of the United Nations (U.N.) General Assembly, the Climate Group—an international nonprofit that works to address climate change with government leaders and businesses—hosts Climate Week...more
On September 8, 2023, the United Nations published its first Global Stocktake report on the progress made by nations in addressing climate change. The report, which represents the first comprehensive assessment of nearly 200...more
Until now, however, no comprehensive estimate existed of the of that opportunity, (or, to put it another way, the size of the financing gap between committed spending and the investment needed to deliver Net Zero by 2050...more
In June 2023, Climate Action 100+, a climate-focused investor initiative, launched the second phase of its benchmarking program to help investors assess and engage with public companies on climate-related issues. Phase 2...more
In June 2023, the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) published a draft of its Financial Institutions Net Zero (FINZ) Standard to enable financial institutions to establish targets consistent with achieving net-zero...more
In a statement released on May 3, 2023, the Dutch Association of Investors for Sustainable Development (VBDO) called for companies in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCGs) and grocery retail sectors to reduce their...more
On April 18, 2023, the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) published a “Net Zero Standard for Oil & Gas.” Development of the Standard follows a two-year collaborative process led by IIGCC with support from...more
On May 12, 2023, the UK High Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by ClientEarth against Shell’s Board of Directors, finding that ClientEarth failed to establish a prima facie case against the Board for its management of climate...more
The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), a European membership body for investor collaboration on climate change, announced the launch of its Net Zero Engagement Initiative (NZEI). A primary goal of the...more
In early April, the climate activist shareholder group, Follow This, filed shareholder resolutions seeking stronger energy transition strategies from several oil “super-majors.” The resolutions have been filed in advance of...more
The Net Zero transition will not be smooth. The scale of the investment required and the appetite and ability of countries to implement new policy – both now and in the years to come – will cause unprecedented disruption and...more
On January 10, Isabel Schnabel, a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank (ECB), gave a speech at an international symposium on central bank independence on monetary policy tightening and the green...more
Environmental advocacy group As You Sow has sent climate-focused shareholder resolutions to five major U.S. banks. The resolutions request that the banks disclose their climate transition plans for meeting financed emissions...more
In its second report assessing how, and to what extent, S&P 100 companies have implemented climate-related policies into their own business initiatives, Ceres, through its Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets, found...more