ESG Feature – COP26


COP26: THE SLOW BURN


While November’s conference highlighted that the world is on course to miss the climate targets agreed in Paris, some positive steps were taken. Mark Dunne reports.


In November, Glasgow was at the centre of the world. Political and business leaders along with royalty descended on the Scot- tish city to strengthen their commitment to fighting climate change. At the COP26 conference, wealthier nations agreed to help fund emerging economies efforts to decarbonise, while huge compromises were made to get almost 200 parties to agree to the Glasgow Climate Pact. COP26 president Alok Sharma presented the deal with tears in his eyes as he apolo- gised for the agreement not being robust enough. “It is difficult to get too excited about COP when the chief


28 | portfolio institutional | February 2022 | issue 110


negotiator cries at the end of it,” says Lloyd McAllister, head of ESG research at Newton Investment Management. Joking aside, it appears that institutional investors do not see November’s conference as a turning point in the fight against climate change. “In terms of impact, there is an ele- ment of inevitable disappointment about COP26,” says John Mulligan, director and climate change lead at the World Gold Council. “Institutional investors love milestones and measurement and metrics, but COPs struggle with those because they reflect the


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