I am still digesting all I learnt at the conference on Wednesday, but here is a small and self-contained item, namely Canada’s feeble response to its Kyoto commitments. This is not hot news, and frankly I am not sure why this had not come to my attention before.
Unlike the US, Canada ratified the treaty in 2002. In so doing, Canada made a binding commitment to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 6% below 1990 levels by 2012. In January 2006, Canada elected a conservative government which had opposed Kyoto, but even before that Canada was seriously off-track. GHG emissions rose 27% between 1990 and 2004, whereas in the US (which has never ratified the treaty) they had gone up by ‘only’ 16%.
In 2006, Canada belatedly introduced legislation (Bill C-30, “The Clean Air Act”) to deal with GHG emissions. As far as I can ascertain this bill has still to pass into law, but I think it may be close. For an account of the legislative process through last June (I can find nothing more recent) see http://www.mcmbm.com/Upload/Publication/GlobalWarming_0607.pdf.
More troubling, it has been amended over time to favor intensity-based targets rather than absolute ones. An intensity-based target limits GHG emissions per $ of GDP, and is ineffective for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it prevents Canadian companies from participating in carbon markets (for example the EU’s Carbon Trading System or buying credits under the Clean Development Mechanism to finance clean projects in China and elsewhere) and thereby getting the biggest bang for their buck. Rather than my repeating all the arguments see http://www.climateactionnetwork.ca/e/resources/publications/member/dsf-intensity-targets.pdf for a discussion of what’s wrong with intensity based targets.
(With the recent change in government in Australia, that country became the 107th country to ratify the treaty, which came into effect in 2005. There is a very useful Wikipedia entry on the efforts of various countries that ratified the Kyoto Protocol at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_Protocol.)
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Business & Climate Change Conference
Yesterday I attended this conference sponsored by The British Consulate General of Houston, The Climate Group, and Shell Oil Company. I was there for almost 12 hours – ok, the last hour or so was a rather well catered reception – and picked up enough information to fill the blog for weeks. This will take some time to organize, however, so this is just an introduction.
The venue was the Federal Reserve's very impressive Houston building, which is even more impressive when one considers that this is just a branch of the 11th district, headquartered in Dallas. Security was strict; rather like an airport except that we did not have to take off our shoes and I had the impression that the guards actually knew what they were doing. No photography allowed. The building houses the Fed’s largest vault. There is a collection of historical bank notes on display in the lobby, as well as a gold bar with an on-line electronic display of its current value. With recent increases in the price of gold, yesterday the bar (about the size of a brick) was worth $383,549. As one might imagine, there was considerable criticism of the Bush administration during the conference, and it is at least nice to know we live in a country where you can do this in a federal building without getting arrested!
Yesterday’s event was relatively small, allowing plenty of interaction with the speakers, who included the British Consul, Paul Lynch, and Rick Lazio of JPMorgan Chase and a four-term congressman who ran against Clinton for the senate in 2000. The keynote speech was given by John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company, and was curiously off-topic. His concern seems to be reliance on foreign oil rather than climate change, and his solutions have to do with more domestic conventional and unconventional oil and gas development. This was not received well by any delegate I spoke to, one saying he thought Hofmeister had come to the wrong conference. There was however a more encouraging presentation from Bill Spence, Vice President of Shell International Renewables. Overall, the conference was very interesting and very optimistic about our ability to deal with climate change. Much more to follow.
Today the action moves on to the Houston’s Presidential Summit on America’s Energy Future (http://www.houstonspresidentialsummit.com/) organized by the greater Houston Partnership. All presidential hopefuls were invited, but apparently only Senator Clinton has so far accepted. (And as I listen to the radio this morning it seems she is in Ohio so it is not clear she will show up.) I am unable to attend anyway, but I am not sure I would want to; they advise arriving 2 hours early because of security. This will also be a much bigger event than yesterday's rather intimate one.
The venue was the Federal Reserve's very impressive Houston building, which is even more impressive when one considers that this is just a branch of the 11th district, headquartered in Dallas. Security was strict; rather like an airport except that we did not have to take off our shoes and I had the impression that the guards actually knew what they were doing. No photography allowed. The building houses the Fed’s largest vault. There is a collection of historical bank notes on display in the lobby, as well as a gold bar with an on-line electronic display of its current value. With recent increases in the price of gold, yesterday the bar (about the size of a brick) was worth $383,549. As one might imagine, there was considerable criticism of the Bush administration during the conference, and it is at least nice to know we live in a country where you can do this in a federal building without getting arrested!
Yesterday’s event was relatively small, allowing plenty of interaction with the speakers, who included the British Consul, Paul Lynch, and Rick Lazio of JPMorgan Chase and a four-term congressman who ran against Clinton for the senate in 2000. The keynote speech was given by John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company, and was curiously off-topic. His concern seems to be reliance on foreign oil rather than climate change, and his solutions have to do with more domestic conventional and unconventional oil and gas development. This was not received well by any delegate I spoke to, one saying he thought Hofmeister had come to the wrong conference. There was however a more encouraging presentation from Bill Spence, Vice President of Shell International Renewables. Overall, the conference was very interesting and very optimistic about our ability to deal with climate change. Much more to follow.
Today the action moves on to the Houston’s Presidential Summit on America’s Energy Future (http://www.houstonspresidentialsummit.com/) organized by the greater Houston Partnership. All presidential hopefuls were invited, but apparently only Senator Clinton has so far accepted. (And as I listen to the radio this morning it seems she is in Ohio so it is not clear she will show up.) I am unable to attend anyway, but I am not sure I would want to; they advise arriving 2 hours early because of security. This will also be a much bigger event than yesterday's rather intimate one.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Misuse of Congestion Pricing
Motorists in Central London have incurred a congestion charge for some time, paying £8 per day to drive within the central area. The scheme is generally regarded as a great success, with cities around the world looking to emulate it and the UK considering a nationwide congestion charge scheme to replace the current road fund license.
London’s controversial mayor. Ken Livingstone, now plans to increase the charge for high-emission vehicles (those emitting more than 225 grams per kilometer of CO2) to £25 per day.
The Financial Times last Wednesday reported that Porsche is planning a legal challenge to the plan. It also reports that owners of high-emission vehicles who live within the congestion zone will no longer get the 90% discount which means they currently pay only 80 pence per day. This is however a little misleading, because the discount applies only if one pays quarterly. Non-residents by contrast have to pay daily if they drive within the zone. So, without the discount the residents will be in the same situation as non-residents and will pay only if they use their cars.
So whose side am I on? Having only two levels of charge separated by a factor of 3 seems too blunt an instrument. And an additional £17 seems excessive, given that an appropriate carbon tax would probably add only something like 25 pence to a gallon of gas. It is hard to use 68 gallons of gas per day in central London, even in a 911! But my main objection is that the original purpose was to tax congestion rather than greenhouse gas emissions, which are not a problem local to central London. I think Ken should stick to the original purpose, and let the UK or indeed the EU worry about emissions.
London’s controversial mayor. Ken Livingstone, now plans to increase the charge for high-emission vehicles (those emitting more than 225 grams per kilometer of CO2) to £25 per day.
The Financial Times last Wednesday reported that Porsche is planning a legal challenge to the plan. It also reports that owners of high-emission vehicles who live within the congestion zone will no longer get the 90% discount which means they currently pay only 80 pence per day. This is however a little misleading, because the discount applies only if one pays quarterly. Non-residents by contrast have to pay daily if they drive within the zone. So, without the discount the residents will be in the same situation as non-residents and will pay only if they use their cars.
So whose side am I on? Having only two levels of charge separated by a factor of 3 seems too blunt an instrument. And an additional £17 seems excessive, given that an appropriate carbon tax would probably add only something like 25 pence to a gallon of gas. It is hard to use 68 gallons of gas per day in central London, even in a 911! But my main objection is that the original purpose was to tax congestion rather than greenhouse gas emissions, which are not a problem local to central London. I think Ken should stick to the original purpose, and let the UK or indeed the EU worry about emissions.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Better Late then Never?
It is reported by the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7263225.stm) and others that the US is ready to accept binding international obligations on reducing greenhouse gas (HGH) emissions if other nations do the same. I am not sure this is a change of position, since the main objection to Kyoto was the different treatments of the so-called BRIC (Brazil, India, and China) countries.
The statement was made Monday by Daniel Price, President Bush's deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, at a press conference in Paris. “An effective framework requires the participation of all major economies, developed and developing alike,” said Mr Price. “Europe and the US could turn out the lights today, and come 2030 or 2050 we would not have addressed the problem of climate change.”
The US comments stem largely from a process initiated by President Bush last year, rather than in support of the ongoing UN process. The latter is based upon the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which last met in Bali last year, and the Kyoto protocol and its replacement due in 2012. I imagine the US is going his own route to save face after refusing to ratify Kyoto, so I think this will change with the new administration, whoever wins. In the eleven months Bush has remaining, it is unlikely that much will come from this apparent change in direction. But at least it might get the dialog with Europe and others on a more constructive basis.
The statement was made Monday by Daniel Price, President Bush's deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, at a press conference in Paris. “An effective framework requires the participation of all major economies, developed and developing alike,” said Mr Price. “Europe and the US could turn out the lights today, and come 2030 or 2050 we would not have addressed the problem of climate change.”
The US comments stem largely from a process initiated by President Bush last year, rather than in support of the ongoing UN process. The latter is based upon the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which last met in Bali last year, and the Kyoto protocol and its replacement due in 2012. I imagine the US is going his own route to save face after refusing to ratify Kyoto, so I think this will change with the new administration, whoever wins. In the eleven months Bush has remaining, it is unlikely that much will come from this apparent change in direction. But at least it might get the dialog with Europe and others on a more constructive basis.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Behavioral Economics
Dan Areily’s new book “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” seems to be getting a lot of press lately, having been reviewed in newspapers and Dan having been interviewed on NPR. It is the subject of a review, written by Elizabeth Kolbert, in this week’s New Yorker. Ms. Kolbert is the author of “Field Notes from a Catastrophe,” an anecdotal book about climate change (which I recommend by the way), but she does not link the two issues in the review.
Dan Areily’s book is a popular one on the subject of Behavioral Economics, which studies what people actually do when faced with economic choices rather than what Adam Smith thought they should do. It turns out that we are not very rational, and that calls into question the validity of a lot of classical economics. The invisible hand might be blind also, and maybe a bit tipsy. I got to thinking what this might mean for carbon pricing. (I should perhaps add here that I have yet to read the book, so this thinking might be premature.)
As discussed last week, a “sensible” price for carbon emissions is probably in the $10 to $50 range per metric ton, which translates into 10 to 50 cents on a gallon of gas or 1 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour on the electricity bill. This extra cost is meant to provide: the power company with an incentive to develop alternative energy sources; industry to find less energy-intensive ways of making products, and indeed entirely new products which use less energy; and consumers to demand and buy products which use less energy and to otherwise alter their life styles to use less energy. Furthermore, if classical economics holds sway and we all behave rationally, it is meant to cut emissions in a way that does least damage to our standard of living. But will it work?
We can probably rely upon industry to do its bit. At least we should hope that well-run corporations make their decisions on a rational basis. Fortunately their rationale includes their desire to look good, so if anything they are probably going to put more emphasis on going green than would be warranted by a strict calculation of the cost. Right now there is no cost, but companies are already beginning to behave as if a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system were in place. This is partly because a lot of their decisions have long-term consequences, but also because of the public relations benefits.
As an example of this, I read somewhere that over half the coal fired power stations that were planned in 2000 have since been cancelled. Carbon Moratorium Now (www.cmn.org) reports that 59 such stations were cancelled in 2007 alone, while here in Texas (where we have more wind power generation on line than any other state), 8 of the 11 coal-fired stations planned by TXU were recently cancelled as a condition of its prospective new owners.
But what about us consumers? Here are a couple of statistics:
Yet:
It is hard to think that we will change our habits because of a 10 cent increase in the price of gas, especially as this is dwarfed by recent increases due to normal demand and supply issues. But we are changing our habits. Prius outsold Explorer last year, and I saw my first Smart ForTwo in Houston last week. I was gratified to see two hybrids in the paddock of a vintage car race meeting at the weekend, showing that even us petrol-heads are concerned. (This was a casual observation; I was not looking for hybrids, let alone counting them. I just happened to notice the inconspicuous badges on these Hondas.)
I doubt that it is the possibility of another 10 or even 50 cents on a gallon of gas that is motivating people though. For now, I think the irrational motivations – by which I mean motivation not based on pure self interest – is working in favor of conservation rather than against it. Let’s keep it that way!
But if consumers don’t do our bit, industry will take up the slack in a cap-and-trade system. The solution will be a little less than optimal, measured in strictly economic terms, but one could argue that if we are happy with our choices then by definition they were the best.
Dan Areily’s book is a popular one on the subject of Behavioral Economics, which studies what people actually do when faced with economic choices rather than what Adam Smith thought they should do. It turns out that we are not very rational, and that calls into question the validity of a lot of classical economics. The invisible hand might be blind also, and maybe a bit tipsy. I got to thinking what this might mean for carbon pricing. (I should perhaps add here that I have yet to read the book, so this thinking might be premature.)
As discussed last week, a “sensible” price for carbon emissions is probably in the $10 to $50 range per metric ton, which translates into 10 to 50 cents on a gallon of gas or 1 to 5 cents per kilowatt hour on the electricity bill. This extra cost is meant to provide: the power company with an incentive to develop alternative energy sources; industry to find less energy-intensive ways of making products, and indeed entirely new products which use less energy; and consumers to demand and buy products which use less energy and to otherwise alter their life styles to use less energy. Furthermore, if classical economics holds sway and we all behave rationally, it is meant to cut emissions in a way that does least damage to our standard of living. But will it work?
We can probably rely upon industry to do its bit. At least we should hope that well-run corporations make their decisions on a rational basis. Fortunately their rationale includes their desire to look good, so if anything they are probably going to put more emphasis on going green than would be warranted by a strict calculation of the cost. Right now there is no cost, but companies are already beginning to behave as if a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system were in place. This is partly because a lot of their decisions have long-term consequences, but also because of the public relations benefits.
As an example of this, I read somewhere that over half the coal fired power stations that were planned in 2000 have since been cancelled. Carbon Moratorium Now (www.cmn.org) reports that 59 such stations were cancelled in 2007 alone, while here in Texas (where we have more wind power generation on line than any other state), 8 of the 11 coal-fired stations planned by TXU were recently cancelled as a condition of its prospective new owners.
But what about us consumers? Here are a couple of statistics:
74% of Americans believe high gasoline prices are a "serious" or "somewhat serious" problem. (Source: Quinnipiac University Poll. June 5-11,
2007), and
81% of Americans believe gasoline prices are "unreasonable." (Source: CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll. May 4-6,
2007.)
Yet:
64% of Americans would be willing to pay higher gasoline/fuels taxes to support development of alternative energy sources. (Source: CBS News/New York Times Poll. Apr. 20-24, 2007.)
It is hard to think that we will change our habits because of a 10 cent increase in the price of gas, especially as this is dwarfed by recent increases due to normal demand and supply issues. But we are changing our habits. Prius outsold Explorer last year, and I saw my first Smart ForTwo in Houston last week. I was gratified to see two hybrids in the paddock of a vintage car race meeting at the weekend, showing that even us petrol-heads are concerned. (This was a casual observation; I was not looking for hybrids, let alone counting them. I just happened to notice the inconspicuous badges on these Hondas.)
I doubt that it is the possibility of another 10 or even 50 cents on a gallon of gas that is motivating people though. For now, I think the irrational motivations – by which I mean motivation not based on pure self interest – is working in favor of conservation rather than against it. Let’s keep it that way!
But if consumers don’t do our bit, industry will take up the slack in a cap-and-trade system. The solution will be a little less than optimal, measured in strictly economic terms, but one could argue that if we are happy with our choices then by definition they were the best.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
A Few Home Electricity Saving Ideas
Saturdays I like to talk about things each of us can do individually to reduce our GHG emissions. Last week I told you to move house, but if you have not done that, here are a couple of little things I have done. All my electricity is supposed to be green, from Green Mountain Energy, so these things are not directly saving GHG. But the less renewable energy I use the more capacity there is for others. And I save money.
The first gadget does not in itself save energy. It is the Cent-a-meter, and it monitors your electricity usage. It is very easy to install, with a couple of loops around the wires entering your electricity meter. A small transmitter transmits the usage to a battery-powered monitor in the house. This allows you to see how many kilowatts are being consumed on an almost real-time basis. Mine is currently (no pun intended) showing that I am using 1.28 kW. You can switch things on and off to see the effects, and change your habits accordingly, and maybe pinpoint an old appliance which needs replacing. I found I was spending about $50 per month powering electronic equipment on charge or on standby. I will be trying a smart power strip soon.
I was also concerned about the charger for a new cordless phone I had just bought, because I could see no easy way to avoid having it on all the time. (I could maybe use a smart power strip controlled by a table lamp, but I am not sure how many hours per day the phone needs to be charging.) Cent-a-meter told me it used 0.02 kW, so at 16 cents a kWh cost about $2.30 a month. This is less than 1% of my bill so I decided not to worry about it, at least until I have addressed bigger issues.
Cent-a-meter is an Australian product but marketed in the US. It can also show power consumption as cost per hour or tons of GHG per year, instead of kW. It updates either every 12 seconds or every minute in battery-saving mode. I used the 12-second mode only while experimenting with different appliances etc. See http://www.centameter.com.au/ or http://www.centameter.us/ for more details. There are other products which fulfill the same need but which I have not tried. For example, PowerCost monitor seems to do the same as Cent-a-meter, while Kill-a-Watt allows individual electrical appliances to be monitored. (The Kill-a-Watt would probably get a more reliable reading for the phone, because you cannot rely on everything else in the house staying constant.)
The second gadget is for pool owners, and I credit it with a good deal of the savings I have made (see below). It is called a TightWatt, and it replaces the old-fashioned mechanical time control on the pool pump. As we all know, the pump does not need to run so much in the winter as the summer, but how many people go out and move those little peg things on the dial every month?
This does it automatically, so that the pump comes on for less than an hour in depth of winter and gradually increases to about 8 hours. (These are just my settings, in Houston. It is all programmable.) We are in our winter now, and the pump comes on only briefly. The pool is sparkling clear, and I also save on chlorine. See http://www.tightwatt.com/. I bought only the single-speed single-pump version, by the way. I have a pool sweep on an old-fashioned timer set to run only for less than an hour, synchronized with main pump in mid-winter.
Pools are very inefficient, and there are other things one can do. The main problem is that they try to force far too much water through far too narrow pipes. One solution is to use larger-bore pipes, and this is being done more now on new pools, but this is not really economical to retrofit. Somewhat easier to retrofit is a half-speed pump. These need to be run for twice as long, but there is still a saving since viscous losses go up more than linearly with speed. I heard about these just weeks after replacing my pump with a conventional one, so I have not made the switch yet.
My electricity bills are running about 25% down on what they were a couple of years ago, even though I have retired during that time and now spend every day at home instead of going to the office. The savings are greater in the winter, so I put a lot of that down to the TightWatt. I have also replaced almost all the bulbs in the house with CFLs. I am still very pro-CFL in spite of safety concerns aired in a previous posting.
My sole experience with an LED was bad though. From BBE, it was meant to be equivalent of a 60W bulb. It is in a closet and I often put it on when I get up before dawn. However, once there is any other light – from the dawn or a light in the room – it is impossible to know whether it was on, with the result that it often got left on all day. Which defeats the purpose and the $30 LED is consigned to the trash. (Well, actually it is in a closet; I am a hoarder!)
The first gadget does not in itself save energy. It is the Cent-a-meter, and it monitors your electricity usage. It is very easy to install, with a couple of loops around the wires entering your electricity meter. A small transmitter transmits the usage to a battery-powered monitor in the house. This allows you to see how many kilowatts are being consumed on an almost real-time basis. Mine is currently (no pun intended) showing that I am using 1.28 kW. You can switch things on and off to see the effects, and change your habits accordingly, and maybe pinpoint an old appliance which needs replacing. I found I was spending about $50 per month powering electronic equipment on charge or on standby. I will be trying a smart power strip soon.
I was also concerned about the charger for a new cordless phone I had just bought, because I could see no easy way to avoid having it on all the time. (I could maybe use a smart power strip controlled by a table lamp, but I am not sure how many hours per day the phone needs to be charging.) Cent-a-meter told me it used 0.02 kW, so at 16 cents a kWh cost about $2.30 a month. This is less than 1% of my bill so I decided not to worry about it, at least until I have addressed bigger issues.
Cent-a-meter is an Australian product but marketed in the US. It can also show power consumption as cost per hour or tons of GHG per year, instead of kW. It updates either every 12 seconds or every minute in battery-saving mode. I used the 12-second mode only while experimenting with different appliances etc. See http://www.centameter.com.au/ or http://www.centameter.us/ for more details. There are other products which fulfill the same need but which I have not tried. For example, PowerCost monitor seems to do the same as Cent-a-meter, while Kill-a-Watt allows individual electrical appliances to be monitored. (The Kill-a-Watt would probably get a more reliable reading for the phone, because you cannot rely on everything else in the house staying constant.)
The second gadget is for pool owners, and I credit it with a good deal of the savings I have made (see below). It is called a TightWatt, and it replaces the old-fashioned mechanical time control on the pool pump. As we all know, the pump does not need to run so much in the winter as the summer, but how many people go out and move those little peg things on the dial every month?
This does it automatically, so that the pump comes on for less than an hour in depth of winter and gradually increases to about 8 hours. (These are just my settings, in Houston. It is all programmable.) We are in our winter now, and the pump comes on only briefly. The pool is sparkling clear, and I also save on chlorine. See http://www.tightwatt.com/. I bought only the single-speed single-pump version, by the way. I have a pool sweep on an old-fashioned timer set to run only for less than an hour, synchronized with main pump in mid-winter.
Pools are very inefficient, and there are other things one can do. The main problem is that they try to force far too much water through far too narrow pipes. One solution is to use larger-bore pipes, and this is being done more now on new pools, but this is not really economical to retrofit. Somewhat easier to retrofit is a half-speed pump. These need to be run for twice as long, but there is still a saving since viscous losses go up more than linearly with speed. I heard about these just weeks after replacing my pump with a conventional one, so I have not made the switch yet.
My electricity bills are running about 25% down on what they were a couple of years ago, even though I have retired during that time and now spend every day at home instead of going to the office. The savings are greater in the winter, so I put a lot of that down to the TightWatt. I have also replaced almost all the bulbs in the house with CFLs. I am still very pro-CFL in spite of safety concerns aired in a previous posting.
My sole experience with an LED was bad though. From BBE, it was meant to be equivalent of a 60W bulb. It is in a closet and I often put it on when I get up before dawn. However, once there is any other light – from the dawn or a light in the room – it is impossible to know whether it was on, with the result that it often got left on all day. Which defeats the purpose and the $30 LED is consigned to the trash. (Well, actually it is in a closet; I am a hoarder!)
Friday, February 22, 2008
US Leadership in Clean Technology?
When one thinks about the leaders in efforts to combat climate change, the US does not immediately come to mind. More likely Europe, Japan, or even Costa Rica. But that could be a misleading impression, based solely upon our federal government and in particular its failure to ratify Kyoto. This will of course change soon; all the remaining presidential candidates – even Huckabee, who does not believe in evolution -- are supportive of efforts to combat climate change.
Perhaps more to the point, business is on board, partly in anticipation of GHG emissions carrying a price tag soon. The Financial Times last month published an article about how the amount of US venture capital going into GHG abatement technology was threatening Europe’s lead. According to Cleantech, a US research group, European investment in clean technology companies was only a third of the $3.7bn invested by US investors.
As reported by Reuters and AP, last week saw a UN summit where institutional investors pledged to invest $10bn over the next two years in technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The plan "reflects the many investment opportunities that exist today to put a dent in global warming pollution, build profits and benefit the global economy," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental leaders, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. Lubber called it the largest meeting of financial leaders ever to focus on climate change and said it would illustrate how the marketplace is starting to transform.
The gathering of 480 investors and other Wall Street types, representing $20 trillion in capital, was organized by groups supporting UN efforts such as the UN Foundation, Ceres and the UN Fund for International Partnerships. For the full Reuters/AP story see http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/303882
Perhaps more to the point, business is on board, partly in anticipation of GHG emissions carrying a price tag soon. The Financial Times last month published an article about how the amount of US venture capital going into GHG abatement technology was threatening Europe’s lead. According to Cleantech, a US research group, European investment in clean technology companies was only a third of the $3.7bn invested by US investors.
As reported by Reuters and AP, last week saw a UN summit where institutional investors pledged to invest $10bn over the next two years in technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The plan "reflects the many investment opportunities that exist today to put a dent in global warming pollution, build profits and benefit the global economy," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental leaders, and director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk. Lubber called it the largest meeting of financial leaders ever to focus on climate change and said it would illustrate how the marketplace is starting to transform.
The gathering of 480 investors and other Wall Street types, representing $20 trillion in capital, was organized by groups supporting UN efforts such as the UN Foundation, Ceres and the UN Fund for International Partnerships. For the full Reuters/AP story see http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/303882
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