– Fix the climate crisis, or get a financial crisis that is many times worse than in 2008.
It was, according to The Guardian, the message from several of the world’s largest investment managers and pension fund during the ongoing climate summit in Poland this week.
The 415 investors, who together administer 32 000 billion dollars, requires rapid and large emission cuts, the total phase-out of coal, a significantly higher karbonpris and end of subsidies to coal, oil and gas.
this measure from the investors joins in a trend that has been increasingly pervasive in the last few years:
Climate change is no longer only seen as a threat for nature, but for the world’s financial stability – or to put it simply: Your, my and our money.
climate risks
the Term often used when talking about climate change and the economy, “climate risks”. The word popping up more and more frequently, both in the business community and among politicians.
Wednesday this week will receive finance minister Siv Jensen handed over to a report from an expert group on climate risks.
Klimarisikoutvalget, chaired by economist Martin Skancke, have spent the last year researching how climate change and climate policies may affect the Norwegian economy and financial stability.
– Important actors in the field of economics and finance have seen that both climate change and climate policies can lead to large changes in many parts of the economy, ” says Anders Bjartnes, the editor of the site Energy and climate change.
Bjartnes think the report from the klimarisikoutvalget will be an important document for the formulation of Norwegian policy in the years to come.
The budget issues will come more to light, and I think it will mean that climate risks must be addressed in far greater degree in the public and private decision-making, ” he says.
Whether you are a local politician and to determine how a housing estate should lie, with the intention of flomfare, or you are member of parliament and shall consider the oljeskatteregimet, as is the impact of climate policy and climate change, in itself, something you need to take into account.
Three types of risk
the Very concept of “climate risks” associated with like to the English central bank governor Mark Carney, and a special group he created in 2015 through the G20-organization the Council for financial stability (FSB).
the special group, which included mediemogul and former New York city mayor Michael Bloomberg, came with a long series of recommendations as to how companies should identify and report on climate risks.
the basic idea is that businesses, investors, lenders and insurers should be aware that climate change can affect the financial risk they take.
climate risks-the term is often divided into three.
Physical risk:
Costs related to physical damage, for example from extreme weather events or havnivåstigning. For Norway’s part is flooding as a result of heavy rainfall a concern, but last summer also showed that the agricultural sector is vulnerable to drought.
Overgangsrisiko:
is about the risk of a loss, as a result of the world no longer needs what you’re doing (for example, diesel engines or coal power). Although it currently doesn’t run fast enough, pointing arrows that the world is turning away from fossil fuels and to renewable power and nullutslippsløsninger.
Several large investors have already taken the implications of it, and will no longer invest in coal, oil and gas. Recently wrote NRK that DNB has refused to lend money to a company that makes engangsplast.
the Pace of the transition to nullutslippssamfunnet can accelerate, for example, as a result of technology development, incentives and subsidies, or more stringent climate policy that makes it more expensive to emit CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.
Ansvarsrisiko:
It is not to come except that a small proportion of the world’s population has earned very good money on fossil fuels that has given the very large emissions of greenhouse gases. Klimasøksmål, either to require politikkendring or compensation from the companies and states, have already begun to emerge.
Vanuatu, a low-lying stillehavsøy that are particularly vulnerable to climate change, warned recently that they are considering to sue the fossil fuel industry, and requires that they help pay for the damage that is being inflicted Vanuatu.
Ingrid Lomelde, environmental manager at WWF, said to the Newspaper earlier in the year that Norway is a country that can risk to be sued for climate change, then we have earned us rich in fossil fuels and is the world’s seventh largest export of greenhouse gas emissions.
