A group of financial firms at the COP26 climate summit on Wednesday pledged $130 trillion to facilitate the transition toward a sustainable global economy — the latest in a string of commitments made by business officials in recent days.

But hedge fund billionaire Tom Steyer says the private sector must also reckon with the role capitalism has played in pushing the world to the "brink of climate disaster" in the first place.

A different, mission-oriented version of capitalism can drive innovation that ultimately helps save the planet from environmental peril, declared Steyer, who last month launched an environmental investment group called Galvanize Climate Solutions.

"I think you're seeing this across society: That the people who are willing to be destructive in their pursuit of a dollar are being called out," says Steyer, a former 2020 Democratic candidate for president. "That it's going to be very, very difficult to operate that way."

"We're moving to a capitalism that has to have an awareness of its impact on society," he adds. "Because otherwise, as you can see specifically in climate, it can go over the edge and has really brought us to the brink of a true global crisis that we need to solve."

Amazon (AMZN) Chairman Jeff Bezos and former Microsoft (MSFT) CEO Bill Gates are among the business officials who descended upon the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland to hatch out environmental solutions alongside world leaders. On Tuesday, Bezos pledged $2 billion for restoring natural habitats and addressing flaws in the food system.

Meanwhile, banks and other financial firms have strengthened their commitments to help address climate change. Over 30 financial institutions that account for roughly $8.7 trillion in assets agreed on Tuesday to stop investing in companies responsible for deforestation.

But it would require a more ambitious effort from the private and public sector to keep the average global temperature from rising 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — the threshold identified by scientists and world leaders as the tipping point for the severest effects of climate change. The global temperature has already risen 1.1 degrees above preindustrial levels.

Steyer rose to prominence as the founder and senior managing member of hedge fund Farallon Capital Management, which he departed in 2012. Since then, he launched the voter engagement organization NextGen America and became a leading advocate on environmental issues.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance, Steyer describe Galvanize Climate Solutions as an environmentally focused investment platform that embodies a model of movement capitalism.

"The reason I call it movement capitalism is that it implies that it's mission driven — that you're not blindly making investments based only on return," Steyer says. "In fact, at the same time, you're measuring impact, you're aware of your responsibilities to society, and that is a change."

"Every country in the world is talking about what they can do to get to a net-zero climate emissions," he adds. "We need a different framework. But beyond that, the entrepreneurship, the energy, the competitiveness of the capitalist system — we need to come up with these solutions."

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