City profile

Mark Carney

News that the Bank of England governor will be the UN’s special envoy on climate action is a reminder that, due to Brexit stalemate and the general election, “we still don’t know who will be in charge” of the Old Lady after 31 January, says Alex Brummer in the Daily Mail. “The notion that it is good practice for market confidence to get the next governor in place early has gone by the board.” The short time window “means that the Government“, whoever that is, “needs an oven-ready candidate” (to borrow a term from Boris Johnson). If that’s Labour, “the proposed shift in the size of the state will make it imperative that the choice is someone who can command the confidence of traders and strategists”.

Carney’s new UN role should suit him: he’s been “banging the drum on climate change since 2015”. It should also “sharpen the focus of Whitehall and corporate Britain on the need for radical change if the UK is to be at the forefront of green initiatives”. Carney’s UN role will involve “mobilising private finance to take climate action and help transition to a net-zero carbon economy”, said BBC Business. The aim is to make “climate change a key priority in private financial decision-making”: Carney signalled that he’d push for “comprehensive” disclosures of climate risk. The position, for which he’ll be paid a token $1 a year, was last held by billionaire former New York mayor, Michael Bloomberg. If Carney follows in Bloomberg’s footsteps, the job could prove a political stepping stone: Bloomberg is currently gunning for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.