Tackling climate change - how will the world pay for it?

Today is all about finance at COP26 and as the host nation it was UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak who got things under way.

Sunak said that the challenge facing finance ministers is to "direct the world's wealth to protect our planet" - deploying investment from both public and private sources, report BBC.

According to Sunak, there are three main strands to the approach:

Public investment - Sunak says developing countries have been devastated by the "double tragedies of coronavirus and climate change". He says that the G20 will step up to deliver $500bn of investment to the countries that need it most over the next five years. The G20 is also renewing its pledge of $100bn a year to help developing nations - although Sunak says this is not happening as soon as it needs to.

Private investment - Sunak says COP26 has seen private institutions with assets worth $130tn create a "wall of capital for the net-zero transition around the world".

Greener financial system - Sunak goes on to say that the entire global finance system will be rewired for net zero. This will involve better climate data, sovereign green bonds and mandatory sustainability disclosures. He says the UK is playing its part and says the UK will become the first ever net-zero aligned financial centre. He says it will become mandatory for firms to set out how they plan to decarbonise and transition to net zero with and independent taskforce to monitor this.

Sunak promises to help developing countries with finance

Rishi Sunak says that he knows that developing countries have been hit by the "double tragedies" of coronavirus and climate change, which is why the G20 countries - the 20 biggest economies in the world - are going to step up to meet the target to provide $100bn of climate finance to developing nations.

That target was set in 2015.

Sunak says that they will work hard to meet that target sooner and, over the next five years, will commit to delivering $500bn investment to countries that need it most.

He adds that the UK will commit £100m to a taskforce helping countries to access finance.

Investment is needed to meet climate targets

Sunak said that it is easy to feel daunted by the scale of the world's climate challenge.

But he says he is optimistic because the Glasgow summit "is the first COP" to bring together leaders of finance and businesses to "direct the world's wealth to preserve our planet".

He says the challenge is to deploy investment - both public and private - to deliver climate targets around the world.

The UK's chancellor refers back to the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which you can read more about here.

Sunak says: "Six years ago, Paris set the ambition, today in Glasgow we are providing the investment we need to deliver that ambition."

He says that means not just numbers on a page but making a "tangible difference" to people's lives.

He says it is about things such as cheap electricity to power schools and hospitals in rural Africa, better coastal defences in the Pacific Islands and about "everyone everywhere having fresher water to drink, cleaner air to breathe, better insulated homes in which to live".

"That's the vision we're asking you to commit to, that's the opportunity we are asking you to invest in and that's the work we are asking you to begin today," he concludes.