McGuinness Meets UN Special Envoy For Climate Change

First Vice-President of the European Parliament, Mairead McGuinness MEP is pictured meeting Mike Bloomberg, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission and Valdis Dombrovskis, Vice-President of the European Commission for the Euro and Social Dialogue at the EU Commission’s high level conference on financing sustainable growth in Brussels recently.

Addressing attendees, McGuinness said banks, insurance companies, financial services sector and capital markets are vital to achieving global objectives of a sustainable economy and a sustainable planet.

“Meeting our targets on climate change and sustainable development requires a massive investment across all sectors of our economy and society. Banks and financial institutions are recovering from the financial crisis, which damaged society and individuals as banks themselves. The call for sustainable finance is a call on banks to do their duty after the financial crash. While governments can, and are, funding investment in this area, the requirement for funds is so large that it cannot come from the public purse alone but must also come from private funds investing in projects, process and sectors to meet our targets,” said McGuinness.

The conference was jointly hosted in Brussels by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis responsible for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union.