The financial sector’s pledges at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow rightly came under intense scrutiny. But amid all the hullabaloo, the most important challenge facing the financial industry fell largely below the radar. If it fails to be met, there is no way that the world’s climate change targets can be achieved.

One of the big headlines from the conference was the claim by the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero group headed by former Bank of England governor Mark Carney that financial firms with $130tn of assets had committed to its programme to cut emissions. Critics complained that the figure included a lot of double-counting and banks in the group were embarrassed when it emerged that they had lobbied to water down the commitments. Yet this looked like nitpicking compared with the huge unanswered question: where will the money come from to decarbonise the supply of energy in emerging markets?