going to be those with a weaker commitment to net zero ; second, simply selling anything with a high carbon footprint penalises those with strong and credible emissions reductions plans just as much as it does those with no such plans. the net effect therefore is likely to be to reduce, not increase, economy - wide incentives to reach net zero. 16 and our end state portfolio, consisting exclusively of firms with low and stable emissions, would by definition play little material role in driving future emissions reduction. i draw two conclusions from this. first, engagement beats disengagement. and, second, when ranking firms ’ contributions to the achievement of net zero, look forward as well as back – giving weight to the calibre of their emissions - reduction plans, and their performance over time against those plans. divestment is a powerful tool, and should remain squarely in the toolkit. but it should be used as a credible threat to reinforce incentives, not an indiscriminate ‘ quick fix ’. a strategy of engagement works best when the message is big, unavoidable and credible. here we face a slightly different challenge. the bank of england ’ s voice has influence. but the cbps is not a huge facility. £20bn may sound like a lot. but it ’ s small in the world of global capital markets – accounting for just 6. 5 % of the sterling corporate bond market, 0. 5 % of total sterling traded assets and a vanishingly small share of global holdings ( table 1 ). table 1 : the cbps in context a worked example is given in section 3 of the discussion paper. all speeches are available online at www. bankofengland. co. uk / news / speeches and @ boe _ pressoffice what ’ s more, we are not currently making active purchases, because the mpc ’ s target stock for the cbps was reached last year. that means the only scheduled purchases are reinvestments, averaging around a billion pounds a year in the near term. so it ’ s clear we can ’ t rely on buying power alone. table 2 : selected investor frameworks17 but we can still use our position to take a lead, working closely with other like - minded central banks and investors. that movement is strong and growing. earlier this year, the network for greening the financial system ( ngfs ), a group of 90 central banks and supervisors which the bank helped to found, published a https

jean - pierre roth : as the financial crisis recedes, what are the lessons for central bank efforts in the future? summary of a speech by mr jean - pierre roth, chairman of the governing board of the swiss national bank, at the centre international d ’ etudes monetaires et bancaires, geneva, 24 november 2009. the complete speech can be found in french on the swiss national bank ’ s website ( www. snb. ch ). * * * the financial crisis of the last two years has caused people to re - examine a number of generally accepted ideas. corrective measures are being undertaken, particularly in the area of banking regulation. for central banks, the most delicate issue will be how to contribute to macrofinancial stability without jeopardising their objective of price stability and, in turn, compromising their own credibility. as regards banking supervision, close cooperation between central banks and banking supervisory authorities is essential. the temptation to concentrate forces is strong. in switzerland, placing centralised oversight responsibility with the swiss national bank would risk weakening the snb ’ s independence from the political sphere. with respect to systemically important financial institutions, everything possible must be done to limit the likelihood and the risks of further problems. major efforts are underway in this regard at the financial stability board. to ensure that central banks have the necessary means to act in a crisis, a liberal legal framework and a safety cushion in the form of equity are needed. the snb is in a favourable position in this respect.