NAGARAJA KUMAR DEEVI

We have seen a flurry of regulatory activity on the part of U.S. Agencies lately, including the Environmental Protection Agency (tailpipe emissions, coal power plants) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (transmission infrastructure planning). All of which stand to deliver strong environmental benefits. For context, under the Congressional Review Act, Congress has 60 legislative days to review and potentially cancel a newly promulgated federal regulation. That short time window takes all its relevance with the approach of US elections. In the background, two critical cases are being heard at the U.S. Supreme Court involving another Agency this time the National Marine Fisheries Service. How is this related? They may result in a significant weakening of the Chevron doctrine, a cornerstone of administrative law guiding judicial deference to regulatory agencies' interpretations of statutes. Who ends bearing the cost for observers on herring fishing boats suddenly takes a critical importance…! https://lnkd.in/gfZuHkXw

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Ara Partners was delighted to join the coalition of investors advancing the gold standard in measuring #decarbonization. The latest guidance on estimating #GHGemissions reduction impact is the result of consensus-driven collaboration - 22 months of work, involving 31 Content Working Group Members, 36 focus group participants, and external reviewers. Congratulations to the Project Frame core team and Prime Coalition on the release! Looking forward to the next year of collaboration at the Methodology Working Group with 2150, AENU, Allianz Global Investors, APG, Azolla Ventures, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bridges, Carbon 13, Carbon Equity, Ceres, Inc., Clean Energy Ventures, Climate Dividends, Climate Investments, Driftwood Climate, Energy Impact Partners, Emerald Technology Ventures, Energy Environment Investments, EQT Group, Future Energy Ventures, Galvanize Climate Solutions, Generate Capital, Generation Investment Management, Helios LLP, JTNL Advisory, Just Climate, Lightrock, MoreScope, PGGM, Planet A, Prime Coalition, Siemens-Energy, Power Sustainable, The Roda Group, TowerBrook Capital Partners L.P., Trill Impact, Venture Climate Alliance, Vidia Equity, WBCSD – World Business Council for Sustainable Development, World Fund, and Zero Carbon Capital.

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Thanks Rebecca Natale from WatersTechnology.com for your consistent coverage of all things identifiers! In this excellent piece she provides us with context around the #FDTA guidance to select #FIGI in place of #CUSIP as the #securityidentifier. Full link requires subscription. Here are the condensed key points: 1. Regulatory Support: Regulators like the Federal Reserve Board, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and CFTC support FIGI due to its open-license status, promoting transparency. 2. Debate and Opposition: CUSIP Global Services criticizes FIGI for its lack of fungibility, suggesting potential operational challenges and increased costs for financial markets. 3. Impact on Practices: The recommendation for FIGI affects regulatory reporting but doesn't change its use in trading, settlement, or clearing, which still use CUSIP or ISIN. 4. Legal and Market Context: An ongoing antitrust case involving major financial data stakeholders adds complexity to the adoption of new standards. 5. Technical and Adoption Issues: FIGI is praised for its flexible data model approach but criticized for not providing complete reference data, which might necessitate additional costly data sources. For my initial linkedin post go here: https://lnkd.in/eiAyWDHK https://lnkd.in/eku_fswh

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Today ASCE released its economic report on “Bridging the Gap.” The report describes the impact that the federal investment has had on the US Infrastructure needs. Terence Smith, CEO of Smith’s Research & Gradings, who serves on the ASCE Committee on America's Infrastructure (America's Infrastructure Scorecard) is hosting the Investments in Energy discussion panel at today’s ASCE Bridging the Gap Release Event. “Our study shows that America’s grid has a unique challenge among all the other infrastructure categories, he said. “Investments in the grid are surging between recent federal legislation and the private market. There’s been a clear raising of table stakes for utilities and network operators: more plentiful, capable interconnections with resilience to more extreme weather. Our economic study, built with improved knowledge of electrification across the economy, shows significant costs to Americans even if recent legislation is extended. So, what now? How do private capital, utilities setting rates, government decision-makers, and researchers pushing innovation meet this challenge?” The economic study analyzes two possible scenarios over 10-and 20-year timeframes: one in which recent federal spending levels remain in place, the “Continuing to Act,” scenario, and the other in which federal infrastructure investment returns to pre-IIJA levels when the bills expire in 2026, or the “Snapback” scenario. The report finds that Continuing to Act greatly reduces infrastructure inefficiencies over time, leading to additional industrial output and household disposable income; however, reverting back to pre-IIJA levels, or “Snapback,” will have a cascading effect on the economy, reducing disposable income for families, and hampering business productivity and overall GDP year after year. The live event and replay can be viewed on YouTube here: Bridging the Gap More: https://lnkd.in/es89iPuJ

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My colleague, Adam Guerino, recently spoke on a panel with the Sustainability Management program at Columbia University. https://lnkd.in/givD2iSc While we're seeing more bond issuance for nature-based and biodiversity outcomes, impact measurement remains a headwind. In the panel discussion, Adam expressed the need for consistent and assessable biodiversity measures that can be priced – much like a ton of CO2 can be priced into a carbon credit. In order to scale nature-based solutions, private capital from investors and asset owners will play a large part. When you can assign a price to an outcome, it becomes much easier to finance solutions.  

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The next webcast in our 'Practitioner's Month' series is coming up on Thursday 17 October, focused on Embedding Nature into Financial Risk Management. To register for this and all webcasts in the series, click here: https://lnkd.in/euDW7D23 This lets you view all 4 webcasts on demand too. #garp #naturerisk #financialrisk

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An informative essay on recent setbacks related to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions proposed legislations and reporting initiatives, the growing divergence between Red and Blue states in the U.S., all of which underscore the critical need for robust quantification standards and increased scrutiny. #columbiaclimate #ghgemissions #ghg

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This article did a great job of explaining "green hushing" and "greenwashing" and the concerns raised with the politicization of ESG reporting. I agree with their Path Forward commentary on the need for continued address ESG despite its current challenges in the US since at a global level we are still seeing forward movement. #accelerateinnovation Thanks Ashly Pleasant for the share and the Weaver team for the info! https://lnkd.in/gF3n9fdV

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In our March 2023 response letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Request for Information regarding Digital Assets Research and Development, the DigiByte Alliance identified government inefficiencies as a focus point for the future research and development of digital asset technology: "DGBA believes it is essential to develop a public framework and common lexicon among public and private stakeholders regarding the key challenges and impediments to the wider adoption and public trust of digital asset technology. Specifically, those areas where a lack of transparency, efficiency, and security cause the greatest misallocation of resources, fraudulent activities, and system exploitation. Expert insights from private and public stakeholders, including the various agencies (e.g., Offices of Inspector General and cybersecurity-related agencies) about current system or operational vulnerabilities within the Federal Government and beyond should be gathered in parallel. Such a survey would better inform federal resource allocation and priorities for future development of digital asset technology solutions and applications within the Federal Government, and beyond." While it has not been confirmed that research funding for #blockchain technology will be part of the newly declared Department of Government Efficiency (#DOGE), one would assume that it might, given its alignment with the goals of efficiency, transparency, and accountability. By targeting areas where lack of transparency, efficiency, and security contribute to resource misallocation, fraud, and exploitation—and gathering insights from both public and private sectors—the incoming administration could guide R&D toward impactful #blockchain solutions, with the potential to achieve government efficiency in the newly proposed department by #DonaldTrump, #ElonMusk and #VivekRamaswamy. Should cost savings be realized by this Department, it would make sense to allocate resources to open-source public blockchains as transparent public ledgers that can drive government efficiencies. #Blockchain #DigiByte #DigitalAssets #GovTech

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Check out Clarity AI roundup of what's been happening in the world of sustainable finance regulation with Claudia Marín Aizpún. 🍀

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Want to read the stories underlying these brief comments? Subscribe at www.GrahamBishop.com Highlights of my week: Intrigues after the #EP election are in full swing! The big political `families’ are trying to attract non-allied/un-attached #MEPs to their family, or even entire factions to switch. Currently, these re-alignments have moved the right-wing #ECR into third position – potentially increasing their leverage on the top #EU jobs and #EP committee roles. But the “grand coalition” (#EPP/#S&D/#Renew) still holds 56% of the seats. More immediately for financial markets, the Commission and #ECB held their annual Financial Stability and Integration conference after publishing their reports. The stocktake on progress of ##CMU and #bankingunion, together with recommendations for future action, may short-circuit some of the usual delays while the incoming financial service Commissioner goes round that track for his/her first year. Ominously for the #CityofLondon, both #Commission and #ECB re-iterated (and underlined!) their concerns about the financial stability risks of being dependent on #UK clearing services. The #BelgianPresidency continued its push to wrap up as many Council positions as possible before the incoming #HungarianPresidency may face other distractions. #CMDI and simpler financial reporting were ticked off this week. Both #ESMA and #EIOPA published their annual reports for 2023 while the #ESRB re-iterated its concerns about the structural vulnerabilities in all segments of the #NBFI sector. The #ESAs proposed improvements to the sustainable finance disclosure regime and the internal auditors body drew its members attention to (and their responsibility for) implementing the #EBA’s “greenwashing” report.

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My piece, The Challenge of Decarbonising, has been published in the Indian Institute of Management Udaipur's Business Review. The article explores why decarbonising efforts have been slow, making meeting the Paris Summit's goals challenging. https://lnkd.in/giNpUH8Y #ESG #environment #netzero #decarbonization #sustainability

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This book changed how I read I read How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler years ago. Today's summary by Farnam Street does a great job of summarizing the key points. Adler talks about the four types of reading, which Farnam summarizes as: 📚 reading to entertain, 📚 reading to inform, 📚 reading to understand, and 📚 reading to master. Many of us are pretty good at the first two; but it is in the last two that the greatest prizes obtain. We are not as good at those. Adler talks about how to do those effectively, and profitably (in the sense of getting the maximum return for your investment in time). Given that we only have 4000 weeks in our life (and some of us have used many of these up already) shouldn't our reading be as effective as it can be? One thing Adler does not address is a key learning of mine (harder to learn than you would think) - It is OK to abandon a book that does not inspire me. Life is too short to read books that don't "do it" for you. I recommend the Farnam summary; it is short. (Farnam calls it "no fluff" - I agree). Even better, get Adler's book and read that - it is also pretty short. From the Farnam Summary: "The demanding reader asks the right questions and seeks answers. There are four main questions you need to ask of every book: ❓What is this book about? ❓What is being said in detail, and how? ❓Is this book true in whole or in part? ❓What of it? Farnam concludes with: "If all of this sounds like hard work, you’re right. Most people won’t do it. That’s what sets you apart. #morebookslessnews #reading #personaldevelopment #mortimeradler

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Congratulations to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Division of Clearing and Risk and Risk Surveillance Branch on the newest Supervisory Stress Test of Clearinghouses! This type of work is essential for ensuring the resilience of clearinghouses and clearing members in the derivatives ecosystem and understanding the potential for systemic impacts or contagion. Such supervisory stress testing requires enormous dedication of resources and sophisticated analysis on the part of the regulators as well as the clearinghouses. International standards require resilience in "extreme but plausible" scenarios and the CFTC has gone beyond this to test "extreme and implausible" scenarios. https://lnkd.in/eEx6yzNA

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Always worth hearing from the Inevitable Policy Response team. Their predictions are very insightful and more often than not accurate! If you want to understand a post Trump election world and what happened in Baku - then this is for you. #esg #climate #responsibleinvestment

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One of the key elements to accelerating the transition is organizing new constituencies invested in the net-zero economy. The launch of the U.S. Green Bank 50 is therefore a major milestone in making the transition durable, effective, and organized!

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This is a longer than usual episode, packed with fascinating insights about NDCs (which are the foundation of climate policy and so key for understanding transtion risk). Adair Turner explains how NDCs are failing to provide a clear direction for action. We explore: - the shortcomings in countries’ NDCs and how they can be addressed. - how NDCs don’t currently reflect the rapid technological progress that is already being made across sectors; and - how geopolitics is influencing the transition and the challenges facing climate finance. Definitely worth a listen!

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