Photo credit: reuters . Henry Nicholls.

By Anders Lorenzen

Mark Carney is the charismatic Governor of the Bank of England who has become a bit of a darling amongst those on the financial world who see climate change as a serious risk.

In a recent statement, Carney warned companies and industries that unless they took on a zero-carbon emissions trajectory, investors will punish them, and, as a result, they will face bankruptcy.

He also warned that the longer the global transition takes the higher the risk would be of global financial collapse.

Despite the science indicating that we are in the midst of a climate emergency, top investments banks continue to pour assets into the fossil fuel industry. The Bank of England has suggested that up to $20tn (£16tn) of assets could be wiped out if the climate emergency is not addressed effectively.

But Carney also highlighted that there are great economic fortunes to be made by those working to end greenhouse gas emissions, with a big potential upside for the UK economy in particular. In a Guardian interview, Carney suggests: “There will be industries, sectors and firms that do very well during this process because they will be part of the solution, … but there will also be ones that lag behind and they will be punished.”

Carney also warned big corporations they had two years to agree on rules for reporting climate risks before global regulators devised their own regular and made this compulsory.

Analysis by Carbon Tracker, a financial think-tank and charity, found that, since last year, major oil companies have approved $50 billion worth of projects that effectively contradict the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Coincidentally, last Monday the climate protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) took their protests to the world’s biggest asset manager in London, Black Rock, demanding that companies move their investments from fossil fuels to renewables.