London, Nov 3 (UNI/Sputnik) UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak on Wednesday announced that the United Kingdom will become the world’s first net-zero financial center, meaning that all financial institutions and listed companies in the UK will be forced to publish plans on how they will transition to net-zero carbon emissions from 2023.

“Today I am announcing the UK will go further and become the first-ever net-zero aligned financial center,” Sunak told delegates at the UN Conference on Climate Change (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland.

In a speech on opening Day 4 of the event, the UK Finance Minister explained that the government will move towards making it mandatory for firms to publish a clear, deliverable plan setting out how they will decarbonize and transition to net-zero with an independent task force to define what’s require.

Sunak also pledged $100 billion a year in carbon funding, adding that over $130 trillion of private capital will now be aligned with the climate goals set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“Six years ago, Paris set the ambitions, today in Glasgow we’re providing the investments we need to deliver that ambition,” The Chancellor said.

According to Sunak, those funds would make “tangible differences” to people’s lives across the world as they would be used to produce clean, cheap electricity to power schools and hospitals in rural Africa or build better coastal defenses to protect people from storms surges.

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