"an assumption that is about to go splat"

Last week, I provided some details on USCAP, the business and NGO coalition that is lobbying our government to impose a cap on carbon emissions. Some recent headlines show that the USCAP coalition is not alone:

"Investment fund giants demand 90% reduction in carbon emissions" -The Guardian
"Gore Warns on 'Subprime Carbon' Industry" -AP
"Investors pledge $10 billion for renewable energy" -Reuters

The demands, warnings, and pledges are being reported from the Investor Summit on Climate Change hosted in New York by the Ceres investor coalition and the United Nations Foundation. The Ceres coalition includes a spectrum of large and small companies, environmental and public interest groups, and investors. As you might expect, Al Gore was in attendance and had some choice quotes:

"You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you — as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you — that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets,"

"Similarly, the assumption that you can safely invest in assets that come from business models that assume carbon is free is an assumption that is about to go splat," he said. "You have lots of assets, many of you do, in your portfolios right now that truly do deserve that epithet 'subprime.'"

As mentioned in my previous blog, efforts by coaltions like Ceres and USCAP will inevitably place greater pressure on our elected officials to take action on climate change. We all know that lobbying by large corporations gets things done in the US; if these companies put their lobbyists to work to truly push for change, and investors put their money where their mouth is, then I can guarandamntee you that climate change legislation will follow.

Finally, no news dealing with climate change is complete without it's skeptics:

"Fake news at Ceres climate scare event: Corcoran" -National Post