AGENDA

As geopolitical and economic conditions become more complex, maintaining momentum on environmental initiatives is becoming increasingly challenging for both governments and businesses. Despite some headwinds, including a slowdown in voluntary private sector climate efforts and policy delays, many governments are advancing new strategies that link decarbonisation with long-term competitiveness. At the same time, companies in various sectors have called for stable and coherent policy environments to support corporate climate action. These efforts are consistent with growing evidence that investing in sustainability supports economic resilience, growth, and competitiveness. Yet an implementation gap persists in many sectors and jurisdictions, raising questions about whether investments in industrial decarbonisation will occur at the necessary speed and scale. This session will examine the evolving relationship between sustainability, investment and economic resilience, and explore opportunities to align policy and finance in support of a secure and competitive low-carbon economy.

As the Baku to Belém Roadmap enters its final stage ahead of COP30, this high-level plenary provides an opportunity to brainstorm the optimal level of ambition and capacity to deliver actionable pathways to trigger scaled-up public and private investments and finance for climate solutions in developing countries. The discussion will focus on the institutional, regulatory and political levers needed to shift financial flows at scale, including how to reduce risks in climate-related financial decision-making, enable investment planning in developing countries and enhance global policy coherence. High-level representatives from governments, the financial sector and international institutions will explore concrete mechanisms to ensure the Roadmap is positioned to drive climate finance at scale and support implementation across jurisdictions and sectors.

Infrastructure investment is central to achieving development goals, including climate resilience and biodiversity protection. Infrastructure projects, especially in emerging and developing economies, require large-scale, long-term financing that is influenced by financial regulatory frameworks. As the Basel III framework takes effect across jurisdictions and the EU moves forward with implementing its Solvency II review, it is a critical moment to assess whether prudential and solvency rules are fit-for-purpose to support infrastructure investment. Emerging evidence suggests that some aspects of these regimes may unintentionally constrain long-term capital flows, particularly to infrastructure in emerging markets and developing economies. This session will explore possible regulatory frictions and inconsistencies that could affect infrastructure finance to identify areas where recalibration may be warranted: Are current treatments of infrastructure assets justified from a risk perspective? How can regulatory frameworks evolve to better align with sustainable investment needs while maintaining financial stability?

Electricity grids have become a major bottleneck for scaling up renewable power. In mid-2024, over 1,600 GW of renewable power in advanced development stages were waiting for grid connection. Yet, power transmission infrastructure faces a massive investment gap, especially in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs). A doubling of annual investment in power systems to USD 600 billion by 2030 is needed to adequately expand and modernise electricity networks globally. Transmission investment and financing models have recently gained higher attention on governments’ and utilities’ agendas, and a new asset class is emerging. This roundtable will delve into new trends in power sector investment, where countries that have developed public-private partnerships (PPPs) in power transmission or are in the process of doing so are invited to share lessons learned with peers, while private investors will share their experiences with this asset class. The session will explore whether recommendations for governments to unlock transmission grid investment match the needs of investors, which factors can impede investment opportunities and how they can be overcome to mobilise capital at scale.

Halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030, as called for under the CBD Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), will require unprecedented levels of finance from all sectors – public and private alike. This session will bring together policymakers, the private sector and international organisations to discuss barriers and opportunities for scaling up and better tracking biodiversity finance. It will cover scaling incentives to drive finance for biodiversity, creating bankable and replicable projects, and how to better track private sector finance. It will also explore the role of development finance in leveraging private finance for biodiversity in developing countries.

Investing in adaptation presents a largely untapped opportunity to build resilient economies by protecting assets, reducing systemic risk exposure and creating new opportunities. Despite the compelling economic case, investment flows remain insufficient. Overcoming this barrier will require scalable business models, effective project level de-risking mechanisms and supportive policy environments. This session will explore solutions and identify specific actions needed from investors, regulators and governments to unlock the "resilience dividend" and accelerate investment in adaptation.

Financing industrial decarbonisation is a challenge but also presents major opportunities, as the many technologies required to put industrial emissions on a path aligned with net-zero emissions are still under development or at early stages of commercialisation. This is particularly the case in emerging markets and developing economies (EMDEs), which seek to reduce their emissions while developing or expanding their industrial base. The investment needed to decarbonise industries requires financing from all sources: public, private, national and international. International assistance can facilitate the creation of markets, the sharing of technology and expertise, and improved access to (low-cost) finance to support the required investments in EMDEs, as well as capacity building. This session will explore the preliminary findings from an OECD-IEA joint study on scaling up technical and financial assistance for industry decarbonisation in EMDEs, which aims to support efforts to operationalise the COP29 pledge, ''Scaling International Assistance for Industry Decarbonisation''.

Will the digital revolution help or harm the climate? On the one hand, data centres, AI, and digital supply chains have increasing environmental footprints due to rapidly growing energy use. On the other hand, digital solutions like smart meters, sensors, and blockchain hold the potential to support climate goals by improving energy efficiency and accelerating the deployment of carbon-free technologies. Given the rate at which the digital transformation is unfolding, understanding its consequences for the net-zero transition is crucial for designing climate policies that best account for the digitalisation of the economy, and digital policies that accelerate, rather than hinder, the clean energy transition. This session will bring together different stakeholders to discuss how the digital and green transitions interact, explore current trends, and discuss concrete policy tools, including investment and financial incentives, that can help align the ''twin'' transitions.

Climate change is reshaping the global economy, with real estate at the center. Worth USD 111 trillion in OECD countries alone, the sector is both a major source of emissions and one of the asset classes most exposed to climate risks. This session will explore two key dimensions of this transformation in a two-part expert panel. The first panel, from 14:00 to 15:00 CEST and moderated by Yves-Laurent Sapoval, will focus on how investors and valuation standards are driving the integration of ESG and climate risks into real estate strategies. The second panel, from 15:00 to 16:00 CEST and moderated by Soo-Jin Kim, will examine how insurers, reinsurers, and regulators are addressing systemic climate risks and strengthening financial stability.

Despite global progress on climate action, efforts to manage climate risks through mitigation and adaptation are not on track to meet climate goals. Exceeding the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement may trigger several tipping points, leading to severe and irreversible climate change. We need to align finance with climate goals, including by unlocking financing for the low-emissions, resilient transition and redirecting finance away from activities that undermine climate mitigation and resilience goals. Yet, recent OECD work points to a continued overall low degree of alignment of finance with climate goals. As a result, under business-as-usual, we are headed towards a delayed and disorderly transition at best, or towards a hothouse at worst. Urgent and systems-wide, transformational actions across sectors are needed to transition the financial system with climate goals, while ensuring energy security, energy access and affordability, job creation, economic resilience and broader sustainable development goals. This roundtable will discuss, in an open and interactive format: (i) key priorities to implement transformative policy interventions and other catalytic levers despite the challenging geopolitical environment and (ii) options to reshape the narrative to align the financial system with climate mitigation and resilience goals. This session will include selected participants invited to intervene. It will also be open to public Forum participants but will be conducted under the strict Chatham House Rule: participants are free to use the information received without revealing the identity or affiliation of the speakers or other participants. This session will not be live-streamed or recorded and will be available for in-person attendance only. As space for this roundtable is limited, in-person Forum participants have received an email inviting expressions of interest to participate in this roundtable on the evening of Tuesday, 30 September (CEST). Following this call, only individuals who have received a confirmation/invitation email will be allowed to enter the roundtable room (CC13). If you have not received a confirmation email from us, we invite you to join the parallel session on future-proof real estate investment, taking place at the same time in Conference Centre Room CC15.

As corporate climate transition plans and disclosures become more widespread, attention is shifting from ambition to credibility. Stakeholders increasingly ask not only whether corporate targets are aligned with the Paris Agreement but whether companies are making the timely investments required to achieve them – and under what conditions these investments are likely to materialise. Strengthening the credibility of corporate climate transitions can help channel the substantial increase in finance required to meet climate goals, while ensuring companies’ plans translate into real environmental outcomes. This session will examine two key dimensions of credibility: environmental integrity, assessed through a set of robust alignment and transition metrics, and economic feasibility, shaped by enabling policies, cost dynamics and access to capital. Speakers will explore how credibility is assessed in practice, whether current transition plans are translating into real-economy action and what types of enabling policy frameworks are needed to support viable and competitive corporate climate transitions.