Date & time: 20 September 2023, 09:15 – 10:45
Location: Pershing Room – Nature Positive Hub, Convene 101 Park Avenue,New York
Do you know your exposure to financed emissions risks? Join this session to hear from financial institutions and experts in deforestation risk about how to navigate climate-related due diligence regulations, existing tools to understand deforestation risks, and examples of financial institutions’ efforts to eliminate agricultural commodity-driven deforestation from portfolios.
Deforestation accounts for at least 10% of global GHG emissions, and carbon loss from tropical deforestation in the last two decades has doubled and continues to rise, driven largely by the expansion of agriculture. Paris climate goals cannot be achieved if we’re not able to stop global deforestation in the next few years.
More than half of global GDP, 55% or $58 trillion, is dependent on nature and therefore exposed to risks relating to nature loss and degradation. Moreover, climate-related risks could lead to a sharp fall in asset prices and increase in uncertainty, with a destabilizing effect on the financial system.
Despite a growing number of pledges to stop deforestation by 2025, too many supply chains and investment portfolios remain exposed to forest-related risks. Financial institutions and companies often lack awareness of the importance of eliminating financed deforestation to reach their net-zero goals or of the existing tools and frameworks that can help them understand, disclose, and ultimately eliminate exposure to forest-related risks. This leads to insufficient transparency around forest-related climate and nature risks and a lack of action to eliminate financed deforestation, hindering efforts to achieve net-zero goals and posing a threat to financial markets.
The Forest Finance Risk Consortium (FFRC), established by the U.S. Department of State and led by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), convenes financial institutions, companies, and experts in deforestation risk and climate and nature financial disclosure to help financial institutions understand and navigate existing guidance and tools and assess the need for others.
This session is designed for financial institutions, companies in sectors exposed to deforestation risks, and others working with the financial sector on reducing financed emissions and climate and/or nature financial disclosure. Speakers from WBCSD, U.S. Department of State, Climate Advisers, and signatory financial institutions of the Finance Sector Deforestation Action initiative will provide an overview of climate-related financial disclosures and climate-related due diligence regulations, share the findings of an assessment of existing tools and frameworks that can help financial institutions and companies to understand, disclose, and ultimately eliminate exposure to deforestation-related risks, and showcase financial institutions that have committed to use best efforts to eliminate agricultural commodity-driven deforestation from portfolios.
Registration for in-person attendance at this event is now closed. However, the session will be accessible to virtual participants via Zoom. To watch the event on Zoom, please click here at the scheduled time.
No registration is required for Zoom, however, the following will still be required to attend the session: First Name, Last Name and Email Address.
For more information, please contact Gretel Gambarelli (gambarelli@wbcsd.org).
Click here to check the WBCSD @Climate Week NYC 2023 dedicated webpage.