Carney’s BOE Successor Must Be Climate Champion, Labour Says

(Bloomberg) -- Mark Carney’s successor as governor of the Bank of England should be a radical thinker who will champion the fight against climate change, the U.K.’s main opposition Labour Party said.

John McDonnell, who would become Chancellor of the Exchequer if the party won a general election, said if Carney’s successor had not been identified when he took office, he would install someone committed to a green economy.

“We do need someone fresh. We need someone who’s got an understanding of the challenges and climate change is a key one,” McDonnell told The Guardian newspaper, in comments confirmed by his office. “We need someone who is willing to be radical.”

Carney is due to leave the central bank at the end of January and the Treasury, which is in charge of choosing his successor, will formally begin the application process next month. University of Chicago professor and former Indian central bank Governor Raghuram Rajan and Andrew Bailey, head of the Financial Conduct Authority, are considered the current frontrunners for the job.

Listing Conditions

McDonnell also said companies should lose their listing on the London Stock Exchange if they fail to take action against climate change, as he set out proposals in response to the “climate emergency” demonstrations that brought parts of central London to a halt last month.

Radical action is needed to save the planet, and government powers should be used to “weed out” companies not taking the need for progress toward a zero-carbon economy seriously, McDonnell told the newspaper.

Action on climate change should sit alongside benchmarks for human rights and trade union rights as conditions for a stock market listing, he said.

“We’ve got to signal now that we’re being serious about tackling climate change,” McDonnell said. “We’re going to use every lever of government we possibly can to enable that to happen.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Thomas Penny in London at tpenny@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tim Ross at tross54@bloomberg.net, Stuart Biggs, Mark Williams

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