Remarks to Panel: Can the UK Truly Become a Sustainability Superpower — or Is That Political Rhetoric?
CC Forum, Mayfair Hotel, London
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,
First my sincere thanks to CC Forum for all their hard work, especially to our dear friend Max Studennikoff.
I have been worrying about climate change since the 1970s. In those days, worrying was unfashionable. Today, it’s a global industry. We have conferences, declarations, acronyms, badges, and rather good lanyards. What we lack is delivery.
Sustainability is broad, water, oceans, forestry, species, space debris even. I’m only talking today about climate change. Climate change has been a hot topic this year. Unfortunately, that’s rather the problem. So I guess I’m the warm-up act for this panel.
When I was born in 1958, atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements began at Mauna Loa in Hawaii. The first reading was 313 parts per million. Today, it is about 427 ppm. That is a CO2 increase of more than a third during my lifetime. The atmosphere has been keeping a better record of our performance than our industries or our governments.
We have held 30 COPs, with COP31 coming to Türkiye. We have agreed targets, made promises, and produced communiqués. We have become extremely good at agreeing that something must be done, provided somebody else does it after the next conference. But most recent COPs have just been COP-outs.
Coming from the City of London – where we passed the first clean air act in the world in 1953, succeeded in a global agreement for emissions trading schemes at COP3 in Kyoto, and are on course for net zero next year – the big question is: Why are we still treating Nature as a charitable cause when we should be treating it as an economic opportunity?
Nature needs markets where people can make money, not just fan clubs where people can express concern. I say that as a long-standing environmentalist, forestry cover science research, first conservation maps of the world, ISO 14000, emissions trading support for COP3 in Kyoto, Marine Stewardship Council, China Construction Bank’s Global Green Finance Index, and more – climate action was one of my six big themes as Lord Mayor, leading to the City Carbon Credit Cancellation service. As Lord Mayor, my theme was “Connect to Prosper”.
Global energy-transition investment reached about $2.3 trillion in 2025 — a record. Yet estimates suggest that roughly $235 trillion of investment will be needed by 2050 to reach net zero.
Finance is not morally superior to conservation, but conservation without an economic model is often a short-lived enthusiasm. We must create financial markets that reward people for protecting and restoring Nature. Nature’s future cannot be finance on cake sales and sponsored walks.
Three markets matter – costly carbon emission markets, profitable carbon removal/sequestration markets, and government policy bond markets.
First, carbon emissions markets.
Pollution should not be a free dumping service. Carbon pricing makes emissions a cost that businesses must consider, rather than somebody else’s problem.
Emissions trading markets work. Everywhere they’ve been used emissions have decreased as a share of rising GDP. Yet few here will know today’s price of carbon on the UK or EU ETS – about £65 or €85; few will know that ETS markets now cover 26% of global emissions; few will know that the ETS markets globally are already well over $1tn annually. And you want to talk about climate change?
Türkiye has installed an ETS ahead of COP 31. Why don’t the Australia, Saudi, India, the USA, and Brazil have such markets? And where they exist, here in the UK, Europe, Indonesia, Canada, why aren’t we pushing harder to expand coverage from less than 50% to an achievable 75%. Global markets work for oil, gold, electricity, and even the future price of pork bellies. Surely we can manage to make an even more profitable market for something as consequential as carbon.
At COP31, let us call for expanding emissions trading coverage from roughly a quarter of global emissions to half by 2030.
Second, markets for carbon removal/sequestration
Longer term, removing carbon already in the atmosphere is also important. But we must stop pretending that every carbon credit is as reliable as the next. A tonne removed must be measurable, independently verified, and durable. What happens if the forest burns, the soil releases its carbon, or the restoration project fails, or the promoters are scammers?
At Z/Yen, we have argued for insurance-backed sequestration markets, including standardised removal commitments with long-term guarantees. This has now happened. A promise without a guarantee is not an asset. It is a hope.
We should build a carbon removal/sequestration market that clearly identifies the quality removal credits that are backed by insurance.
At COP 31 let’s create such a market.
Third, policy performance bonds.
Governments are very good at setting targets. They set new ones every day – and are not keen on being targeted when they miss them. Businesses cannot invest billions in long-term infrastructure if governments change the rules every time the political weather changes.
One amazing approach is straightforward: link the cost of government borrowing to measurable performance against environmental targets. If a government misses its commitments, its borrowing becomes more expensive.
My team worked with Chile demonstrating the sovereign sustainability-linked bond model in 2022. These link the cost of government borrowing to measurable performance against sustainability targets. Chile helped demonstrate the model, and countries including Uruguay, Thailand, and Slovenia have followed with related approaches. If governments want markets to believe their commitments, they should be prepared to have them measured and pay when they don’t meet them.
Chile’s was a 20 year bond whose interest rates go up if they don’t meet their UNFCCC target in 2030, and don’t increase renewables in the grid from 43% to 60% by 2030. It’s an inflation-linked bond in structure, just about saving the planet. Chile can use the bond’s proceeds for whatever it wants; roads, schools, hospitals, police, it’s not hypothecated. Chile just needs to deliver on its carbon promises. It’s been very popular with investors who need a hedge against government policy risk.
COP31 should be about making the other thirty COPs’ promises credible, by giving investors a clearer basis on which to support long-term projects. Let’s have all governments issue a sovereign sustainability-linked bond of some substance tied to their UNFCCC promises, say 2035 or 2040 targets.
Conclusion
So, what should you take from all this? Three practical commitments.
- First, expand credible carbon emissions markets so that polluting becomes progressively more expensive.
- Second, build insured, independently verified carbon removal markets so that carbon sequestions becomes investable.
- Third, make governments accountable through policy performance bonds, so investors can trust that environmental commitments will survive elections.
These are not competing with the moral case for protecting Nature. They are making that case economically durable.
We know how to mobilise capital at speed. We have done it for the internet, telecommunications, and now artificial intelligence. Money is not the scarce resource. Convincing investors that the rules will endure, the returns will be real, and the risks will be manageable is the harder task.
A sustainability superpower is not a country that makes the grandest promises. It is a country that makes sustainable solutions profitable, measurable, and exportable. Let’s stop competing to sound the greenest, and start competing to be the greenest.
Here at CC Forum, let us connect to prosper — and make protecting the planet something that is not merely good to do, but profitable. Because the best way to get people to protect Nature is to give Nature a business model.
Thank you.
