Financing the future: a global climate divest-invest summit

From 10 – 11 September, faith leaders, foundations, university administrators, activists, health care organizations, and municipal governments will convene at Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town for Financing the Future: A Global Climate Divest-Invest Summit. The Summit is the world’s first major conference on the role of Finance in tackling the climate crisis to be held in the Global South.

The world is building from a fossil fuel past to a renewable energy future. With little time left before we lock in irreversible climate impacts, people are responding by taking action. Faith leaders, university administrators, and municipal governments are now all looking at how they can transform finance for the future.

The Summit will:

• Provide tools and resources to align capital with climate goals.
• Challenge the global community to leave fossil fuels in the ground.
• Underscore the urgent need for investments that help developing nations leapfrog dirty development and provide clean energy access.
• Set a vision for how we can finance the future.

Investors, with trillions in assets, have the power to move faster than governments and catalyze the transition to renewable, universally accessible energy by shifting capital out of the problems and into the solutions today.

Fossil fuel divestment and clean energy investment is more important than ever.

Who should attend?

• Financial officers, directors, trustees or representatives of: Retirement funds, universities, private schools with endowed funds, foundations, religious bodies, and NGOs
• Civil society representatives and climate activists interested in financial activism
• Investment managers, asset managers and asset consultants

Financing a fossil fuel-free future in which everyone has access to renewable energy – especially the 1 billion people living in energy poverty – is indispensable to solving the climate crisis. With little time left before we lock in irreversible climate impacts, mission-driven leaders are responding by taking action.

At a time when many governments are backsliding dangerously on climate policy, investors play a crucial role in financing our future. Advocates across the globe have called on institutions to divest from fossil fuels and to invest in a new energy economy. To date, more than 1,000 institutional investors with over $9.2 trillion in assets — including cities, religious and spiritual groups, foundations, insurance companies and sovereign wealth funds — have committed to divest from fossil fuels, marking unprecedented growth and progress for an exploding global movement.

Bringing together diverse leaders, activists, and government officials, the Summit will:

• Build momentum for the global Divest-Invest movement by convening cities, faith-based organizations, foundations and universities for an interactive program that provides tools and resources to align capital with climate goals.
• Showcase and strengthen the Global South’s leadership role in the movement, underscoring the urgent need for investments that help developing nations leapfrog dirty development and provide clean energy access.
• Provide a platform for new Divest-Invest announcements and for the release of a high-level statement from movement leaders challenging the global community to leave fossil fuels in the ground.

Notable speakers

• Paulo Artaxo, Professor of Environmental Physics at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Nnimmo Bassey, director of the ecological think-tank, Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF) and member steering committee of Oilwatch International
• Mark Campanale, Founder of the Carbon Tracker Initiative
• Ellen Dorsey, Executive Director of the Wallace Global Fund
• Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director of GreenFaith
• Makoma Lekalakala, Director of Earthlife Africa
• Mark Watts, Executive Director of C40

Summit Ambassadors:

• Christiana Figueres, Former Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
• Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, Archbishop of Luxembourg and President of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community
• Bill McKibben, Author and environmentalist
• Mayor Dan Plato, Mayor of Cape Town
• Mary Robinson, Adjunct Professor for Climate Justice in Trinity College Dublin and Chair of The Elders, Former President of Ireland (1990-1997) and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002)

View conference program.