A fisherman off the coast of Lamu island in south-eastern Kenya in 2018, where inshore overfishing, illegal fishing methods and limited means of livelihood are some of the challenges the industry faces. (Keystone/EPA/DaiI Kurokawa)

🎣 Crunch time for fish subsidies talks. Peter Thomson, the UN secretary general’s special envoy for the oceans, has urged countries to end the “environmental and economic madness” of subsidising harmful fishing operations ahead of a World Trade Organization meeting this month that will be crucial in unlocking a long-awaited agreement.

🌱☠️ Think green or face extinction, banks urged. Climate change is forcing financiers to change the way they think and act. This could have a big impact on their balance sheets - and potentially their very survival. They are no longer purely financial specialists, said Yves Mirabaud, in his last speech as president of the Association of Swiss Private Banks in June.

UNCTAD World Investment Report 2021

An observatory for sustainable finance. In spite of the pandemic, 2020 was full of promises for the sustainable finance sector. There were 3,987 sustainable finance funds in the world last year – up 30 per cent from 2019 – according to data from Morningstar and Trackinsight. Almost three quarters are based in Europe, a sign of the advanced regulatory environment for sustainable investment on the old continent. But the booming sector is also giving rising to new complexities, disparities in data, and concerns over greenwashing. To keep watch over these challenges, UNCTAD will launch a UN Global Sustainable Finance Observatory in October.

📍 6-15 July | High-level political forum on sustainable development. The forum is the United Nations platform for follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. It takes place under the auspices of the Economic and Social Council.

📍 6 July | Closing the Financing Gap: Investing in Natural Capital to Achieve the SDGs. The Green Growth Knowledge Partnership (GGKP) and the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) estimate that over $750 billion per year in additional global investment in nature is needed to achieve related SDGs by 2030. This webinar will explore how to plug that investment gap.