The scrutiny of sustainable finance is expected to intensify over the year as stakeholders look for market participants to deliver on environmental promises.

Douglas Flint, former HSBC chair and current chairman of Abrdn, talks to Euromoney about climate change, his hope for the future and how he convinced CEO Stephen Bird to join the firm over fish and chips and a pint in an Edinburgh pub.

The controversy around voluntary carbon markets has deterred banks from getting involved. They need to worry less about reputational risk and more about the planet.

Emerging Europe has been slow to join the fight against climate change. Now the region’s biggest banking group is making its voice heard.

One of the strongest themes of COP26 was the involvement of the private sector on an unprecedented scale. What happens next?

Some bankers arriving in Glasgow came down to earth with a bump.

A year on from being named financial adviser to Covax, a global alliance set up to deliver two billion pandemic vaccine doses to low-income countries, Citi bankers tell Euromoney about lessons learned, what has been achieved – and if Covax is a success or not.

As COP26 winds up, Euromoney looks at how a big reduction in fossil-fuel consumption might impact the currencies of the world’s leading coal and oil exporters.

Rabobank CEO Wiebe Draijer says that private finance must have a role in financing the transition to a more sustainable, equitable and healthy way of feeding the planet.

Governments have been slow to impose compulsory cap and trade schemes, but if voluntary markets nudge them along, a new asset class could flourish.

Andrew Cohen, executive chairman of JPMorgan Private Bank, talks to Euromoney about the war for talent, why diversity and inclusion have never mattered more, and what markets the private bank has in its sights.

The International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) is one of the most closely watched developments in climate standards to have been announced at COP26. Although its launch was the culmination of an ambitious project, its work is only just beginning.

This year’s cash management survey sees banks looking beyond purely pandemic-related challenges to focus on sustainable finance and investment in technology.

A new programme announced at COP26 plans to speed up progress away from coal-fired power in Indonesia and the Philippines by buying out plants, shutting them down, and helping to provide a cleaner alternative.

Intense competition for assets means that risk is being mispriced.

The COP26 summit requires serious and inspired leadership, which its host looks ill-suited to provide.

The hard truth is that in much of the developing world, climate change still ranks well below more immediate concerns such as unemployment, disease, poverty and political unrest for households and businesses.

Policymakers in Moscow are finally promising to tackle climate change. Will the Russian private sector follow suit?

The president of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank tells Euromoney the multilateral is intent on being ESG friendly, and crowding more private-sector capital into infrastructure projects.

A new pledge to use foreign reserves to buy ESG assets is one of many institutional measures in Japan. But the country has still not realized its green potential at the corporate level.

Investors fear that many Asian governments aren’t doing enough to transition to net zero. They are therefore engaging with the region’s largest utilities hoping for better results. CLP may be an example for others to follow.

There has always been great overlap between Shariah-compliant finance and ESG principles. Malaysia is trying to harness the potential that arises from this confluence.

A new poll by the data-room technology provider finds that worries over the potential for post-deal value destruction because of climate change have added to a risk environment already heightened by the coronavirus pandemic.

President Xi Jinping has set out ambitious plans to decarbonize China’s economy. But most companies and banks, hampered by a lack of top-down regulation, have little idea what ESG is, let alone how to measure and report it. It is a mess – and one that China needs to clear up fast.

Before long, investors will pay as close attention to an issuer’s green framework as to its credit rating.

China unveiled a plan for its first national parks on Friday, the final day of the COP15 conference in Kunming. It reveals the weight of Party concerns about pollution and biodiversity fragmentation, and their impact on political stability.

Supervisors attending this year’s meeting of the Institute of International Finance were at pains to show they would not be rushing to impose capital penalties on banks based on climate stress tests. But the issue is at the heart of a debate over what the limits to regulatory scope should be.

The banking sector will never pick its way through the climate change jungle without harmonized regulations. To meet global risks, a global sector needs global standards. It is time for Basel V.

The BlackRock chief executive sees a big gap opening up between the commitments of large public companies and banks and the rest of society as inflation hits.

Sustainable agriculture holds the key to reducing emissions and transforming the global food system, says Rabo Carbon Bank’s chief executive.