UN EXCLUSIVE climate czar Carney in new bid to get risk capital on board – sources

Bank of England Governor Mark Carney speaks during a news conference at the Bank of England in London, December 1, 2015.REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

NEW YORK, May 9 (Reuters) – UN climate envoy Mark Carney plans to meet major private equity firms in London on Wednesday, wooing a corner of the financial world that has been reluctant to join his initiative, according to people familiar with the matter.

Most major buyout firms have refused to join Carney’s Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a coalition of asset managers, banks and insurance companies representing $130 trillion in assets.

Some of the private equity firms mention other climate initiatives they have adopted. They privately argue that their activity of constantly buying and selling companies makes it difficult to firmly commit to GFANZ’s primary goal of zeroing carbon emissions from their investment portfolio on a net basis. by 2050, in accordance with the Paris Climate Treaty.

Carney, a former Bank of England governor who launched GFANZ last year, is due to meet senior executives from some of the world’s biggest private equity firms in London on May 11, including Blackstone Inc (BX.N ), BC Partners and KKR. (KKR.N), the sources said.

The sources requested anonymity as the meeting is confidential. A KKR spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Some 164 private equity firms have joined the Initiative Climate International (iC International), an association of buyout firms that “seek to better understand and manage the risks associated with climate change”, according to its website.

iC International calls on its members to “contribute” to helping the world meet the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average, but unlike GFANZ, it does not sets no binding targets.

GFANZ said it plans to release a series of frameworks, white papers and other guidance to help its members achieve their climate goals as it prepares for the upcoming UN climate summit, in Egypt in November.

Reporting by Greg Roumeliotis in New York and Simon Jessop in London, editing by Ed Osmond

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