The former chief of the Bank of England and chair of Brookfield Asset Management, Mark Carney, won a landslide victory in Canada’s Liberal Party to replace Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.
Carney helped steer Canada through the 2008 financial crisis as governor of the Bank of Canada before taking the same job in the UK. With Michael Bloomberg, he spearheaded the Task Force Climate-Related Financial Disclosure, or TCFD, and led efforts by central banks to identify climate-related risks.
In a 2015 speech, Carney famously called out climate’s “tragedy of the horizon” caused by the short term outlook of most investors. “You are the first generation of investors to understand climate risks—but you are also the last generation that can do something to mitigate them,” Carney told the PRI in Person crowd two years ago.
As a UN Special Envoy for Climate Action, he co-chaired the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ, which has lately reorganized after a rash of defections by major financial institutions.
Prime fundraiser
At Brookfield, Carney led the firm’s energy transition investments, helping to raise a whopping $15 billion for the firm’s first Global Transition Fund.
“This fund provides significant scale of capital with catalytic long-term investment the world needs to help put our planet on a sustainable net-zero pathway,” Carney said in 2022.
Amid a tariff battle with the US, Carney also oversaw a controversial move of Brookfield’s headquarters from Toronto to New York. He stepped down from the private equity firm in January to run for the leadership of the Liberal Party, which holds the prime ministership. Carney must call an election by October 20.
