| |  | | | | | | | | | Hello!
Happy belated holidays to people around the world who celebrated Easter, Ramadan and Passover over the weekend.
And then there's another important celebration coming up - Earth Day on April 22, the annual event highlighting awareness about the various environmental challenges facing our planet.
This year’s theme, "invest in our planet", focuses on the effects of climate change and the efforts being made to mitigate it.
Some of those financial efforts are being advanced by organizations such as the International Monetary Fund, which expects members to make "significant" pledges of support for its newly approved Resilience and Sustainability Trust.
The IMF's board approved creation of the new trust last week to help low-income and most middle-income countries deal with longer-term challenges such as climate change and pandemics, with a goal of raising at least $45 billion.
Elsewhere, Global Citizen, an international non-profit aiming to help end poverty, said it plans to launch six funds of up to $1 billion, each focused on generating environmental and social impact in the developing world.
Under the model, investors - primarily funds with impact mandates - give money to the NGO to expand its services, with the aim of hitting certain targets. If successful, the Global Citizen fund would release donor money to repay the investors.
| | | | | |  | | | | The sun, appearing orange due to smoke haze from forest fires, rises behind the skyline in New York City, New York, U.S., July 21, 2021. REUTERS/Bjoern Kils/New York Media Boat | | | Utility giant National Grid plans to eliminate fossil fuels from its heating systems in New York state and Massachusetts by 2050, primarily by expanding the use of electric heat pumps and sourcing more renewable natural gas.
Thousands of South African soldiers will help with relief efforts in KwaZulu-Natal province, where more than 440 people have died in floods and mudslides and dozens more remain missing.
U.S. Democrats in Congress squabbling over how best to invest in the fight against climate change will forge a compromise in coming months that could be signed into law by President Joe Biden, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin predicts.
A Mexican union said on Monday it will ask the U.S. government to investigate a Panasonic plant for alleged worker rights abuses, the latest in a series of disputes seeking to leverage a new trade deal to improve workplace conditions in Mexico.
Breakingviews: The world’s richest man says he’ll pay $54.20 a share for social network Twitter and sell his 9% stake if the "best and final" but non-binding offer is rejected. It’s less than a week since Elon Musk walked from a deal to join the Twitter board. Twitter has multiple reasons to demand more. | | | | | | | Oskar Tijs, senior portfolio manager sustainable equity at Netherlands-based asset manager, NN Investment Partners
What do you think about the launch of REPowerEU?
"We can replace Russian oil and coal, but diversifying gas supply is much more challenging as LNG and pipeline infrastructure are limited. Importantly the commission aims to speed up permitting for renewables and power grid infrastructure, to faster develop solar and wind projects that are in many cases economic without subsidies. For buildings, subsidies are needed to improve energy efficiency and install solar panels and heat pumps. Renewable hydrogen will play a key to decarbonize the industry, but government support is needed to make it affordable for energy intensive companies."
In the event of a peace deal or end of the invasion, do you think this will lead nations to rush back to Russia for their energy?
"A peace deal could obviously reduce the instant pressure to move away from Russian gas, coal and oil. However, Europe has realized the urgency to decarbonize our energy use, not just to stop global warming, but also to gain energy independence. When the war comes to an end, it remains important to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, also to secure affordable energy for the long term without being dependent on countries like Russia or the OPEC."
| | | | | | |  | | | | U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will convene a high-level panel on Tuesday to discuss the global response to an ongoing food security crisis exacerbated by Russia's war against Ukraine, the Treasury Department said in a statement. Issues such as food security fall within the social sustainability category in ESG, which faced a 15% decline in bond issuance during the first quarter this year. | | | | | | | • The US Department of Commerce has named Reggie Townsend, director of the data ethics practice at analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) software company SAS, to the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee (NAIAC).
The NAIAC will advise the president and the National AI Initiative Office on a range of issues related to AI. In his role, Townsend will coordinate effort to empower employees and customers to deploy data-driven systems that promote human well-being, agency and equity.
• The African Development Bank has appointed Karen Rot-Münstermann as evaluator general.
Rot-Münstermann, a Dutch citizen, is currently the acting evaluator general and division manager. Before joining the Bank in 2009, she was a senior policy advisor at the Dutch Ministry of Finance at the treasury, foreign financial relations department.
| | | | | | | | "After leading our industry with more than a decade of carbon neutrality, we asked ourselves how we could take our commitment to the next level. We are taking this bold next step [to achieve net-negative carbon status this year] because it’s the right thing to do on behalf of our people, our clients and our broader communities." | | | | - Manny Maceda, Bain & Company’s worldwide managing partner. | | | | | | | • | Coming as climate change, drought, and COVID-19 had already constricted global edible oil supplies, Russia's invasion of Ukraine has all but wiped out sunflower oil production and driven up oil prices, increasing demand for biofuels – especially futures prices for palm oil, according to a Reuters report coming out on April 20. | | | | | • | European Parliament's energy committee discusses the EU's proposed legislation to require countries to fill their gas storage ahead of winter, as well as proposals to make the bloc's renewable energy targets more ambitious on April 20.
| | | | | • | The International Energy Agency and the European Commission publish a guide for how consumers can save energy, at a time when energy prices are soaring, and European countries are concerned about disruptions to Russian energy supplies on April 21. | | | | | • | The word celebrates Earth Day on April 22, marking the anniversary of the birth of the modern environmental movement in 1970. | | | | | | | | | | The Great Reboot | | |  | | | Manufacturers, including Tesla, began preparing to reopen their Shanghai plants on Monday as China’s most populous city speeds up efforts to get back to normal after a nearly three-week COVID shutdown.
However, most workers will still have to live onsite, and there was no immediate word how factories will deal with disrupted supply lines and access to market, with closures ordered by authorities in other cities and port and trucking problems.
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