19  10  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  10  Setting a target for the overall climate properties of the portfolio will help shape and steer our investment decisions, and provide transparency and accountability. At first sight, the framing of this target seems obvious: to achieve net zero by 2050. But 2050 is well beyond the likely lifespan of the CBPS. And ‘achieve net zero’ does not tell our staff which bonds to trade. So we need a nearer-term, intermediate, goal – in measurable units. The Discussion Paper considers a number of options (Chart 6). The first, a declining path for the carbon footprint of the portfolio, is simple to state and measure, and can be aligned with the Government’s target path to net zero. Implementing it at a more granular level is however complicated by the limited availability of appropriate sectoral pathways to net zero. Chart 6: Options for intermediate portfolio targets  11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/news/speeches and @BoE_PressOffice  11  A second, more forward-looking, approach would be to use an ‘implied temperature rise’ metric to target a declining temperature path. These convert data and projections of the current and future emissions of companies held in the portfolio into estimated future temperature levels, using assumptions about how those emissions compare to target paths.
3/3  BIS - Central bankers' speeches