New arrangements, from transitions to ruptures

Just over 10 years ago, the COP21 conference in Paris delivered to all of us, the people of the United Nations, an utterly precious and innovative dual diagnosis. The coupling of science with finance led the world to stop treating climate change solely as an environmental problem and to start treating it as a systemic risk.

On the financial aspects of emissions, emissions gaps, and nationally determined contributions, Mark Carney, then the governor of the Bank of England, became the architect of turning climate change into a matter of global financial stability, sustainable governance, and disclosure infrastructure.

He used no shades when speaking about the tragedy of the horizon, where physical - climate change - and transitions' risks - Minsky moments for repricing of assets in a low carbon economy - collide with the short-term horizons of impact investors’ and central bankers' cycles. Risk was heavily mispriced, and that could put the global economy at risk.

Mark became a crucial figure, leading the shift toward the just transition — from saving the planet to saving a global, under-risked financial system.

At this year’s Davos, in his new role as Canada’s Prime Minister, shifts and transitions became ruptures, reframing climate strategy within an unprecedented geopolitical storm. Many levels are affected by the tragedy of the horizon, extreme weather, and tariffs that are increasingly disrupting traditional pricing, insurance, and supply chain structures.

Again, with no shades, this moment matters. A moment in which middle powers can still coordinate around human rights, sovereignty, and the rule of law. A just moment of rupture, 10 years after a just moment of risk recognition.

This is the latest chapter in a story of financial, social, and now political impact, beginning at the heart of the finance industry.

Two years after Mark arrived at the Bank of England in the climate revolutionary 2015, speaking at Lloyd’s of London, he opened the door to climate in the heart of finance by framing it as a financial stability issue. The costs of climate change accumulate more slowly than election cycles, business plans, and risk models can address. What sits beyond the horizon is easy to discount, until it isn’t anymore.

That speech translated climate from a moral challenge into a risk taxonomy. It showed how physical impacts could damage assets and disrupt the economy, how transition dynamics and demand reallocation could strand capital and reprice entire sectors. 

Suddenly, climate action wasn’t only aspirational but mapped real-world risks: credit risk, underwriting risk, and, eventually, broader societal risk.

A “Minsky moment,” i.e., a sudden repricing in abrupt favour of a low-carbon economy, i.e. disorderly transitions, could leave the real economy stranded. Hinting at a deeper argument that finance will not self-correct on climate, requiring credible, investable pathways and institutional pressure.

The UK, at that point, was not a blank canvas. The country’s Climate Change Act 2008 had already established legally binding frameworks for carbon budgets, industrial clusters, and institutional oversight. Carney insisted that the financial system begin measuring actions and risks along the way.

Mark built the kind of minimal, scalable plumbing that turns an idea into infrastructure when he launched, together with Michael Bloomberg, our beloved and non-pronounceable TCFD, the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures, creating new opportunities out of the risk and guiding enterprises on governance, strategy, risk management, metrics, and targets — all together. 

And building on Paris, at the first post-and between-pandemic COP in Glasgow 2021, he founded GFANZ, the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, as a visible product of an amazing and thrilling era, aiming to align major financial institutions with impact and net-zero goals.  

Those of us who had the chance to participate in all of this as doers and thinkers, until COP 28, felt the rhythm of this just transition in full and at scale. During that COP in Dubai, we followed low-profile Mark, then UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance, everywhere we could, as his role-modelling was then at such a high expression! 

Today, with the Davos “rupture” speech, Mark helped us find a way out, refusing a logic of fragmentation as old as the 1930s with his call for honesty.

Let's revolutionise this planetary entropy by focusing on shared values. Standards, trade rules, industrial policy, and transition investments must rely on different, yet collaborative strategies and resilience.

Carney’s arc, then, is not simply “central banker becomes Prime Minister.” It is the story of how climate and governance for the best social impact and sustainable development move from the margins into the core of financial and geopolitical logic. And how that logic can still win, supported by innovation and diversity, powered and accelerated by tech.

Translating economies into eminently solvable, to use his words of some years ago, investable and non-inflationary paths. Agreeing with Alberta to drop a proposed oil-and-gas emissions cap, in favour of stronger industrial carbon pricing and support for carbon capture and storage! Finally, CCUS comes back in favour of the legacy industry after 30 years of post-Kyoto failure, all the while pushing clean tech and  “clean comparative advantages” in critical minerals and materials. Managed shifts in investment, reducing the risk of disorderly divestment!

Mark's vocabulary has made climate legible to finance, has standardised how institutions can disclose and manage risk, and is now calling us to look at friction and overcome it through VALUES, from a different angle, yet still as sustainable as the ones for building a better world! We are right behind you, Mark, and we know sustainable development will thrive. 

After Davos 2026, no matter what, the climate governance that holds values-based ambition will gain steadiness in an unstable economic and political context. Through just energy complementarity, just climate opportunities, and just tech frontiers. And some of their controversies!

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Sources:

- Davos 2026 transcript (WEF): https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/davos-2026-special-address-by-mark-carney-prime-minister-of-canada/

- Reuters reaction/pushback on “rupture” framing: https://www.reuters.com/world/world-order-changing-not-rupturing-finance-chiefs-say-2026-01-23/

- “Breaking the tragedy of the horizon” (BoE, page): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2015/breaking-the-tragedy-of-the-horizon-climate-change-and-financial-stability

- “Breaking the tragedy of the horizon” (PDF): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/speech/2015/breaking-the-tragedy-of-the-horizon-climate-change-and-financial-stability.pdf

- “Resolving the climate paradox” (BoE, page): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/speech/2016/resolving-the-climate-paradox

- BIS text of the 2016 lecture: https://www.bis.org/review/r160926h.pdf

- UK Climate Change Act 2008 (official legislation): https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2008/27/contents

- FSB establishes TCFD (Dec 2015): https://www.fsb.org/2015/12/fsb-to-establish-task-force-on-climate-related-financial-disclosures/

- FSB publishes TCFD recommendations (June 2017): https://www.fsb.org/2017/06/task-force-publishes-recommendations-on-climate-related-financial-disclosures/

- TCFD site (handover/disbanding notice): https://www.fsb-tcfd.org/

- PRA SS3/19 landing page (2019): https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/publication/2019/enhancing-banks-and-insurers-approaches-to-managing-the-financial-risks-from-climate-change-ss

- UNFCCC on GFANZ launch: https://unfccc.int/news/new-financial-alliance-for-net-zero-emissions-launches

- Reuters on GFANZ dropping Race to Zero requirement (Oct 2022): https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/mark-carney-led-grouping-drops-un-climate-initiative-requirement-2022-10-28/

- Guardian investigation on GFANZ loopholes/greenwashing critique (June 2022): https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/15/banks-agreeing-climate-pledge-gfanz-accused-of-exploiting-loopholes-greenwashing

- Reuters on Canada roll-back of oil-and-gas emission caps (November 2025):
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/canada-drops-emissions-cap-oil-gas-sector-agreement-with-alberta-2025-11-27/

- Liberal Party of Canada government agenda:
https://liberal.ca/cstrong/build/