India promises net zero emissions by 2070, marks unprecedented climate pledge
More than 120 world leaders met in Glasgow, Scotland, yesterday in a “last, best hope” to tackle the climate crisis and avert a looming global disaster.
“It’s one minute to midnight and we need to act now,” British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, was due to tell them, according to extracts from his speech.
“If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.” Observers had hoped a weekend meeting in Rome of leaders of the G20 nations, which between them emit nearly 80 per cent of global carbon emissions, would give a strong impetus to the Glasgow COP26 summit, which was postponed for a year due to the pandemic.
The G20 major economies committed on Sunday to the key goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the most ambitious target of the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
They also agreed to end funding for new unabated coal plants abroad, those whose emissions have not gone through any filtering process, by the end of 2021.
But this did not convince non- governmental organisations, the British prime minister, or the United Nations.
“While I welcome the G20’s recommitment to global solutions, I leave Rome with my hopes unfulfilled, but at least they are not buried,” UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, said on Twitter.
“We’ve inched forward (at the G20). We’ve put ourselves in a reasonable position for COP in Glasgow but it’s going to be very difficult in the next few days,” Johnson said Sunday, before warning: “If Glasgow fails, then the whole thing fails.”
The Glasgow gathering, which runs until November 12, comes as an accelerating
onslaught of extreme weather events across the world underscores the devastating impacts of climate change from 150 years of burning fossil fuels.
The current commitments of the signatories of the Paris agreement, if they were followed, would still lead to a “catastrophic” warming of 2.7 Celsius, according to the UN.
COP26 marks the “last, best hope to keep 1.5C in reach”, summit president Alok Sharma said as he opened the meeting on Sunday.
“If we act now and we act together, we can protect our precious planet,” he said. Climate advocacy groups expressed disappointment at the statement released at the end of the G20 summit.
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SEC TASKS STOCKBROKERS IN INNOVATIVE PRODUCTS
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has urged operators to create innovative financial products that would support businesses, boost market liquidity and enable the market to play its role of capital formation in the economy.
The commission also expressed its resolve to intensify surveillance of the market and vowed to apply stiff sanctions to any operator that engages in unethical conduct.
Speaking at the 25th yearly conference of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers
held in Lagos, at the weekend, Director General of SEC, Lamido Yuguda, said there was the need for stockbrokers to identify some specific areas that could be used as a stimulus to improve the current state of the market.
He said to retain investors’ confidence in the market, investors must derive benefits from the market and perceive capital market intermediaries as working for them.
According to him, developing new strategies to strengthen accountability amongst market participants in the market is critical to improving market confidence.
He urged operators to channel assets into productive long-term investments such as critical infrastructure needed to unlock economic improvement and improve the living standards of citizens.
Therefore, he urged the institute to ensure that its members continue to uphold high ethical standards in the discharge of their fiduciary duties as trusted agents of investors, saying, “We must therefore rise to the challenge to work hard and do all that we must to attract investors to the market and to engage in strategic discourse and advocacy with policymakers at all levels, to channel long-term funds into profitable cost-recovery based infrastructure.”
In addition, he stated that because capital market operators are the face of the market and interact daily with investors, they must prioritise the interest of investors over their own and demonstrate the highest level of integrity and transparency in their operations.
The SEC boss pointed out that poor conduct dissuades investors from the market, thereby negating the collective objective of broadening and deepening the market.
He assured that the commission would continue to adopt measures aimed at empowering trade groups and professional associations to enhance effective market regulation.
He also pledged the commission’s commitment and determination to restoring investor confidence, preserving market integrity and reducing systemic risk.
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