The Climate Leadership Coalition’s annual spring meeting was held on 4 May 2021 remotely via Teams due to the COVID-19 restrictions imposed on meetings. The meeting was opened by the Prime Minister of Finland Sanna Marin.
“One of the cornerstones of the Finnish climate efforts is the sector-specific low carbon roadmaps. The best way to achieve ambitious climate goals is not by top-down ordering of targets but through bottom-up development of strategies. The sum of the roadmaps is impressive, and I have been positively surprised by how Finnish industry has taken up the challenge. Finland’s clear advantage is that all of the sectors across society support an ambitious climate policy,” said Prime Minister Marin.
CLC’s members have been involved in the preparation of 12 out of 13 low carbon roadmaps.
The spring meeting’s leadership panel discussed key actions in the transformation towards climate neutrality in Finland, the Nordics, the EU and internationally.
“The Nordic region has the potential to become a global leader in sustainable finance, a position which would strengthen access to capital for Nordic businesses. We need to create stronger partnerships across the Nordic region. A combined population of 27 million represents a large market on a European scale. A common framework in key areas such as public procurement could benefit Nordic businesses and drive innovation across the Nordics,” said Idar Kreutzer, CEO, Finance Norway.
“Meeting the Paris Agreement requires policies and investments to shift from long-term aspiration to short-term action. The technologies to allow us to achieve the necessary decarbonisation are already available and cost-competitive. And, even better, accelerating the energy transition yields a higher return on investment than inaction,” said Henrik Andersen, CEO, Vestas.
“In order to achieve the 1.5 degrees Celsius target in climate change mitigation we need to scale up our actions by multiplying the current level of both public and private climate-impacting investments. Recent experience shows that this necessary acceleration of investments is not possible unless we provide a truly meaningful price and cost signal for all relevant industries. A market-based mechanism that produces an effective carbon price is the solution to this. This needs strong support from all of us concerned about climate change,” said Jorma Ollila, former Chairman, Nokia and Shell, and a member of CLC’s Advisory Board.
“We need an innovation effort on a scale the world has probably never seen before. It will require a huge global investment scheme for green infrastructure, science and technology,” said Marcus Wallenberg, Chair of the Board of Directors, SEB, and a member of CLC’s Advisory Board.
“Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, progress on low-carbon solutions has been faster than many realise, bringing forward the potential for market shifts. Harnessing this Paris effect means that by 2030, low-carbon solutions could be competitive in sectors accounting for nearly three-quarters of emissions, up from one quarter today – and a predictably rising carbon price is the best policy instrument to catalyse investment in these solutions. Countries, companies and investors that act on these market shifts will capture the benefits of millions of jobs, resilient economies and, simultaneously, reduce emissions. The case for enlightened self-interest has never been stronger,” said Jeremy Oppenheim, Founding Partner, SYSTEMIQ, and a member of CLC’s Advisory Board.
In addition to the panel, Jeremy Oppenheim presented key results from The Paris Effect: how the climate agreement is reshaping the global economy – report, Nils Torvalds, Member of the European Parliament and the CLC’s Advisory Board presented the status of EU Climate law and Jouni Keronen, CEO, CLC and Nina Ekelund, Executive Director, Haga Initiative briefed CLC members on the status of the Call on Carbon initiative. The annual spring meeting was chaired by Jyrki Katainen, President, Sitra and Vice-Chairman of CLC.
“The need from private sector financing and participation to the mitigation of climate change is bigger than we generally tend to think and doing the transformation in a socially acceptable way is a prerequisite for the successful transition”, said Jyrki Katainen in his summary.
During the official part of the spring meeting, it was noted that since its 2020 autumn meeting CLC has accepted 17 new organisational members. On 4 May, CLC approved one new member, Combient Pure, which helps companies make the transition to low carbon and circular business faster.
“Combient Pure is a new initiative by the Combient Network, which works to future-proof the business of its 30 leading Nordic companies. Pure is Combient’s co-creation engine for value-chain-wide low carbon and circular solutions – we help groups of companies realise the potential of being a frontrunner in low carbon business and innovating transformational climate solutions,” says Marika Määttä, Head of Combient Pure.
Jouni Keronen welcomed Combient Pure to the CLC network. The new addition brings the total number of CLC organisational members up to 87 and strengthens CLC’s position as Europe’s largest climate business network.
For more information, please contact: Jouni Keronen, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Leadership Coalition, jouni.keronen@clc.fi +358 50 453 4881, and Kari Mokko, Development Director, Climate Leadership Coalition, kari.mokko@clc.fi +358 40 751 3281.
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