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36%—The share of electricity generated by coal worldwide

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+/-2.5°C—The projected rise in average global temperatures if countries fully implement their current commitments for climate action by 2030

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52—Months remaining until listed companies burn through their share of the carbon budget for limiting global temperature rise this century to 1.5°C, as of Aug. 31

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30%—The share of listed companies that disclosed any emissions from their value chain, or Scope 3, as of Aug. 31

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USD 1.2 billion—Financial support by governments for clean-energy investment since the start of the pandemic

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46%—The U.S. share of total clean-energy investment support

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USD 160-340 billion—The amount needed annually by developing countries by 2030 to adapt to extreme weather

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More than 140 companies in the index – about 5% of the total – have direct operations in deforested areas, while another 244 may be contributing indirectly to forest degradation through their supply chains, as of Nov. 30, 2022.

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While 94% of food producers and 86% of food retailers contributed directly or indirectly to deforestation as of December, only 12% and 18%, respectively, had adopted a basic policy on forest loss, the analysis shows.

MSCI ESG Research has introduced two new tools to help investors identify and manage nature-related risks.

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The first merges ESG and geospatial data to flag companies that have physical assets located in areas of healthy forests, species-rich areas or other places of high biodiversity significance.

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The second pinpoints companies exposed to deforestation-related risks, including those that may be contributing either directly or indirectly to deforestation.

Using a climate index in parallel with a broad market-cap-weighted index could help managers of climate-focused funds demonstrate their ability to meet climate objectives, an analysis by MSCI shows.

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Among 23 climate-focused funds, those with the highest carbon intensity exceeded the carbon intensity of their parent index over the year ending last June, suggesting they were only targeting higher allocations to green revenues.

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Selection of a parallel climate benchmark would depend on matching the fund's objectives with the appropriate climate index, the analysis shows.

Examining emissions intensity metrics over time can help investors distinguish actual reductions in companies’ carbon emissions from changes related to a fall in revenue or enterprise value including cash (EVIC), an analysis by MSCI ESG Research shows.

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Carbon intensity in both the air freight and logistics, and commodity chemicals industries, for example, fell by more than 20% over the five years that ended 2020, notwithstanding those industries’ absolute emissions increasing by 27% and 32%, respectively, according to the analysis, which explains that lower carbon intensity resulted from increases in EVIC of 59% and 88, respectively.

February 16th—Aligning investment portfolios with climate goals. Join Rishab Sethi, director of external investments at NZ Super Fund, and Sylvain Vanston of MSCI climate change investment research for a virtually hosted discussion of reducing portfolio exposure to carbon emissions and making progress toward net-zero. Learn more and register here.