BlackRock chief executive Larry Fink on Sunday (July 11) called for governments to develop a stronger long-term climate finance plan to unlock the private capital needed to fund the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Speaking to The Venice International Conference on Climate at a meeting of G-20 Finance Ministers, he said without such a plan, current efforts, including on corporate sustainability disclosures, risked being “nothing more than window dressing”.
Fink, who heads the world’s biggest asset manager, with around US$9 trillion (S$12.15 trillion) in assets, also called for reform of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to make them more suited to tackle the challenge of climate change.
Fink, highlighted three “critical” issues needed to power the ecological transition, which he said represented a US$50 trillion opportunity for investors. BlackRock itself is a major investor in fossil fuels.
Firstly, he said private companies needed to be under the same pressure to share information on their sustainability efforts as public companies.
Secondly, Fink said governments risked fuelling inequality unless they created more demand for greener products and services, lowering the cost, or ‘green premium’, that penalises the worse off and could fuel social instability.
Lastly, global institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF needed to be changed so they could do more to encourage private sector capital to help fund the transition in emerging markets.
