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ESG sukuk issuance surged by 46% year on year to USD13.5 billion by end-9M25, marking a full-year record. Fitch Ratings expects ESG sukuk to retain a prominent role in emerging markets, with momentum likely to remain solid into 2026.

SMBC and Jefferies co-hosted a forum for senior executives from leading Japanese corporations and investment firms. The event built on Jefferies’ Sustainability and Transition team’s longstanding collaboration with Japanese leaders to unlock opportunities in the country’s climate investing and decarbonization journey.

SMBC and Jefferies explored how Japanese companies can best monetize the energy transition and Green Transformation (GX) Plan, a $1 trillion effort to reduce emissions over the next decade. The event’s themes — pragmatism, value creation, and collaboration — anchored discussion of best practices across Europe, the United States, and China.

Published: November 21, 2025 by Andrew Howell, CFA, Senior Director and Head of Research for Sustainable Finance, EDF and Ismael Hernandez Rivera, Senior Manager Sustainable Finance, EDF

Next week, the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) closes its consultation on proposed amendments to several sector-specific disclosure standards (the “SASB standards”) including for coal operations, oil & gas, metals & mining, iron & steel, and processed foods. Among numerous proposed enhancements, one deserves to be called out: the improved treatment of methane disclosures.

Methane is responsible for roughly one-third of today’s global warming, yet many corporate climate disclosures still treat it as a footnote. We strongly support these enhancements and encourage investors and other stakeholders to share their insights into the importance of these proposed changes.

Caroline Li, Deputy Product Manager, sits down with Chen Chen, Head of China Healthcare, to explore the forces driving China’s Healthcare surge, regulatory dynamics and the investment opportunities shaping the sector’s future.

Market commentary - Scott Voss, Managing Director, Senior Market Strategist

"At the Paris AI Action Summit this past February, Dario Amodei, CEO of AI superpower Anthropic, offered a striking analogy: As early as 2026 or 2027, AI systems will be “akin to an entirely new state populated by highly intelligent people appearing on the global stage—a ‘country of geniuses in a datacenter’—with the profound economic, societal, and security implications that would bring.” 

If this is true, I wonder if this “AI nation” will have a seat at the table when and if we need to renegotiate sovereignty, trade, governance, or climate policy? And which large language model will inform its worldview?....."

"Our 2025 Annual Sustainable Investing Report describes in detail how we put this principle into practice, investing with responsibility and purpose in order to drive long-term value for our clients, partners, and the communities in which we operate."

The latest round of COP talks feels like a process that’s running on fumes. Attendance and engagement from the biggest emitters is patchy, the targets lack any real step-up in ambition, and the agenda on deforestation – arguably one of the fastest levers we have – is almost empty. For investors looking for a clear policy signal, there’s very little: no strong framework to anchor capital allocation, no new guardrails to change behaviour, and no sense that the process is catching up with the physical urgency of the problem. 

A fossil fuel phase-out agreement turned out to be elusive and while COP30 did deliver several investor-relevant outcomes - from TFFF and forest financing to grid investment and adaptation finance - the lack of a global road map on climate was a disappointment. 

Yet investors will largely carry on with their climate strategies anyway. The growth of climate funds, net zero commitments and transition plans is now driven much more by investors’ own assessment of climate risk – physical, transition and reputational – than by anything that comes out of COP or even by the Paris Agreement as a live reference point. In other words, capital is moving because climate risk is real, not because climate diplomacy is inspiring.

That leaves an uncomfortable disconnect: the COP machinery can keep turning out communiqués and communiqués can keep getting weaker or more qualified, while forests continue to be cleared and global emissions intensity remains stubbornly high. The multilateral process risks becoming a kind of annual climate theatre – important symbolically, but increasingly peripheral to the decisions that actually shape portfolios, business models and land use on the ground.

Key Highlights

• Near-Universal ESG Integration: ESG integration is used by 96% of respondents, covering 87% of AUM and reinforcing RI’s central role in Canadian investment practice.
• High Levels of Reporting Confidence: 69% of respondents express confidence in the overall quality of ESG reporting, while 91% are confident in their own organization’s reporting; calls for greater standardization and independent assurance remain strong.
• Climate Risk as a Leading Driver: Risks associated with a changing climate are now the top driver of RI growth, highlighting the financial materiality of climate considerations.
• Negative Media Narratives as a Barrier: 46% of respondents cite negative media coverage from other jurisdictions as the leading deterrent to RI growth, surpassing greenwashing as a top concern.
• Stewardship and Collaboration Remain Strong: 76% of respondents remain active in collaborative engagement initiatives.
• Steady Growth Expectations: 66% expect RI to continue growing, 31% expect RI levels to remain stable and almost none expect contraction.
• Commitment to RI: 75% say that RI remains a priority within their portfolio management processes, 24% say it is a higher priority

‘Policy Momentum and Public Sentiment ahead of COP30’ Is the US decline spilling over?

The ongoing reversal of US climate policy is driving a record global slowdown in climate action, but at least for now we do not see significant spillovers. Nevertheless, the slowdown is driving worsening sentiment

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: THE DIVERGING GLOBAL POLICY LANDSCAPE JULY-SEPTEMBER 2025

• The global cancellation of hydrogen projects, represents a global re-evaluation of green hydrogen’s role and timeline in the energy transition for heavy industries. While economically advanced nations such as the EU and Germany are adopting more pragmatic hydrogen plans, the developments overall suggest that investments may pivot to other more mature, cost-effective technologies, such as electrification.
• Global climate policy momentum continues to significantly decelerate. But a closer look at policy trends in Q3 2025 and across 2025 more broadly reveal a stark divide between the United States and the rest of the world. While US policy is in reversal, there is no systematic reversal in climate policy momentum anywhere else. With a few limited exceptions, climate policy momentum outside of the US across 2025 largely tracks our expert forecast.
• While momentum is largely keeping pace with 2024 benchmarks, ‘policy sentiment’ – what we define as the narrative around policy actions and announcements – is clearly spilling over to other markets, raising questions for the broader outlook: Is sentiment a canary in the coal mine for decelerating policy momentum outside the US moving forward?
• Does it signal a broader shift from policy to technology drivers as policy becomes less important? Or does it suggest a more general break between the ‘signal’ and the ‘noise’ when it comes to climate policy actions?

The IAEA’s World Fusion Outlook aims to be the global reference for authoritative information and updates on fusion energy — a potentially unlimited, clean energy source, which can contribute to diversification of energy generation in the long term.

The IAEA has been promoting fusion energy research and development for almost 70 years, and it continues to strongly support research and development and future deployment by bringing the fusion community together to create solutions for both scientific and technological challenges.

This third issue of the publication presents a selection of recent achievements in fusion energy, outlines some of the dozens of fusion plant concepts currently at various stages of development worldwide, highlights global efforts in fusion energy development and discusses for the first time the global outlook for fusion energy deployment. As a special focus topic, this edition of the publication explores high temperature superconductors and their potential role in the commercialization of fusion energy.

The Climate Inequality Report 2025 reveals how wealth drives the climate crisis, and proposes new policy options to address it. It builds on the 2023 edition and two years of pioneering research conducted by the World Inequality Lab and universities worldwide.

KEY FINDINGS

• Wealthy individuals fuel the climate crisis through their investments, even more than their consumption and lifestyles. At the world level, the top 1% represent 15% of global consumption-based emissions, while they account for 41% of global emissions associated with private capital ownership.
• Climate change can deepen wealth inequality, while well-designed policies can help reduce it. The top 1% could see their share of world wealth jump from 38% to 46% by 2050 if they own tomorrow’s low-carbon assets....

In October 2023, the EU introduced its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). It requires EU companies that import high-carbon products like aluminium or cement from outside the EU to measure the emissions caused by these products abroad.

Similarly, non-EU countries that export to the EU have to document the emissions of their products. Starting in 2026, the EU will then charge these imports with the same carbon price as the EU emissions certificates that domestic producers have to buy. But how much will this CBAM add to costs in the EU?

The goal is to eliminate the arbitrage opportunity from shifting carbon-intensive production from the EU to a non-EU country where the producers have lower emissions standards and don’t have to pay for emissions.

The State of Climate Action 2025 provides the most comprehensive roadmap yet for closing the global gap in climate action to help keep the Paris Agreement goal within reach, as well as grades collective efforts to combat the climate crisis across key sectors. It finds that recent progress toward 1.5°C-aligned targets has largely failed to materialize at the required pace and scale and highlights where action must accelerate this decade to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, scale up carbon removal and increase climate finance.

An Energy Technology Perspectives Special Report

In modern history, few innovations have been more consequential than the car. Today, cars are central to the lives of millions of people around the world. The market for cars is one of the largest for a single product, and this product represents the single largest source of oil demand, a key trend that the International Energy Agency (IEA) has tracked closely for decades.

What’s more, car manufacturing is a pillar of the economy in many countries today, directly employing over 10 million people across the world – while supporting millions of additional jobs elsewhere in the supply chain, from steel and aluminium production to component manufacturing.

Yet as we look at the data, we can see that the car industry is undergoing major changes, which merit close attention for their implications for energy and economies. Three fundamental shifts are underway – in terms of the geography of car production, in terms of the regions that are driving sales growth, and in terms of the technologies being chosen by consumers. This is posing challenges for many internationally renowned carmakers, which have honed their craft over decades of manufacturing focused on internal combustion engine cars...

Getting ESG Right Is Crucial to Identify Risk, Opportunity
 
As ESG moves beyond its label, investors must focus on the industry-specific risks and opportunities that drive company performance — or risk missing major market shifts.

Bloomberg Intelligence’s latest ESG outlook focuses on how financial materiality can unearth potential share price outperformance and identify key ESG themes for 2026.