Sustainable finance, emerging markets and Climate Innovation Forum 2026

A broad conversation for London Climate Action Week

We covered a variety of topics across country platforms, insurance perspectives, the evolution of voluntary reporting, to required TCFDs to ISSB implementation (what was done 10 years ago matter), and more. There are too many insights to debrief on now, so I’ll just highlight a key point that stuck:

Sustainable finance in emerging markets

Sustainable finance in emerging markets and the conversation of cost-of-capital across the event. Emerging markets are still being evaluated for credit risk based on metrics that many believe are not indicative of their actual risk. For example, GDP per capita is regularly used as a means of disqualifying credit opportunities, but is this a likely reason for why India would default?

In reality many developed markets may pass the GDP per capita test, but the question of default is less rhetorical than it used to be. Lastly, the lumping all of “EM” into one bucket distorts pricing and large cap equities are getting the majority of the gains.

My homework for when I’m back at the desk?

Curious to dig into the Country Platforms Knowledge Portal. The portal provides itself as a resource to organise complex governance, policy, and financially material topics, into a repurposeable structure. When presented on stage, the point was clear: Countries should be able to leverage the success of other global initiatives on engagement, not recreate the wheel each time.