Only days after COP26 closed its doors in Glasgow, Woodside and BHP announced they will go ahead as joint venturers building one of the world's biggest fossil fuel developments, Scarborough gas field in the North West. The Scarborough Gas "abatement" plan involves increasing emissions until close to the 2050 net zero date. We'll let you know how that's going in 2046. But for those who were networking outside the COP26 inner sanctum, there’s a very different approach to economic growth in the 21st century. Banks and fund managers are quietly switching away from coal, and dubious about gas long term, and don’t give promises of carbon capture a thought. The bankers beyond Australia are funding new kinds of projects – the kinds that are about landscapes and climate action rather than expanding the burning of fossil fuels. This week Understorey’s Adrian Glamorgan catches up with Paul Chatterton, the founder and lead of the Landscape Finance Lab based in Vienna. Paul's meetings at COP26 highlight the fact that not all the action in Glasgow was happening in the conference halls. The 21st century will belong to the innovators. Around the planet, from Microsoft to the European Union, a new world is being built and investors are finding profits in a zero carbon economy. Australia, selling coal and arguing gas is a transitional fuel, is in danger of being left behind.

Photo: Landscape Finance Lab