Standard & Poor’s Ratings has this week addressed frequently asked questions about climate transition risk facing banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, describing banks’ efforts in measuring the risk to date as a ‘work-in-progress’. On financed emissions, like those covered by RFI Foundation’s financed emissions database, S&P highlighted that “banks' difficulties with measuring scope 3 emissions come up regularly in our discussions”. This is understandable because emissions measurement is an almost universal challenge for banks globally.

This context of data gaps was a motivating factor for the way RFI undertook its financed emissions work, which is catalogued in an open-access database with five years of data covering banks and financial markets in the six GCC countries and five other OIC markets. The financial sector plays a key role in financing the transition and will need substantial new capabilities beyond what they have now to understand the many types of climate transition risk they face from the activities they finance.