Engie S A : Gérard Mestrallet at the Climate Chance summit

Gérard Mestrallet was invited to the plenary session 'What funding for climate action?'. The participants focused on the funds dedicated to climate actions which exist today, sometimes highlighting the difficulty of accessing them, the potential synergies between private and public investments, the new financial tools for financing climate action and the opportunities arising from the use of the financial resources generated by carbon pricing. Gérard Mestrallet emphasized the fact that most of the clean energy solutions we need are technologically viable. 'The true challenge is to be able to deploy them widely and rapidly.' To do this, financial leverage is indispensable. In this light, the introduction of carbon price signals is needed to move investment choices in the direction of low-carbon solutions.

The conference featured a high-level talk on carbon pricing, in which Gérard Mestrallet participated. He spoke about the importance of introducing and extending worldwide carbon price signals for the electrical sector, in particular, and also described the role of the Carbon Pricing Leadership Coalition (CPLC), of which ENGIE is a member. The CPLC brings together governments and enterprises to share their experience of working with carbon pricing. In particular, this sharing of experience enables the different carbon pricing systems to be identified and their relevance in sometimes differing contexts to be assessed.

Gérard Mestrallet also gave a speech at a side-event entitled 'Internal carbon price: companies are committing themselves'. During this event, he explained why and how ENGIE is introducing an internal carbon price. For the company, this initiative has several objectives:

• Raise ENGIE employees' awareness of climate issues,
• Create an economic inducement for committing to the deployment of a low-carbon economy: putting a price on carbon emissions is a means of rewarding the investments made in low-carbon technologies,
• Internalize the cost and risks of climate change in ENGIE's economic decision-making,
• Prevent certain regulatory risks, such as the phase-in of new carbon pricing in a country where the company exercises its activities.

'Putting an internal price on carbon is also a tangible action which proves that companies are ready to include the climate factor in their strategy and their business model.'