[MCN] Fossil fuel combustion can batter ag, timber, real estate et al

[Lance Olsen]

Climate change is a threat - and an opportunity - for the private sector
Op-Ed by Dimitris Tsitsiragos
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2016/01/13/climate-change-is-a-threat---and-an-opportunity---for-the-private-sector

First published in Capital Finance International on January 6, 2016.
http://cfi.co/europe/2016/01/ifc-climate-change-threat-and-opportunity-for-private-sector/

Excerpts :

"But why should businesses, whose main responsibility is to their 
shareholders, care about climate change? The answer is simple. "

"A study by CitiGroup found that rampant warming could shave up to 
$72 trillion off the world's gross domestic product, while another 
report in the journal Nature found it could reduce average global 
incomes by nearly a quarter. A four-degree Celsius jump would also 
batter sectors like agriculture, real estate, timber, and emerging 
market equities. All told, that would make for a toxic environment 
for businesses large and small."

"Investors wouldn't be immune either. A report by Cambridge 
University suggests equity portfolios could tumble by up to 45 
percent as climate-related fears ripple across global markets."

"Some companies are already starting to feel the pinch. Earlier this 
year, the CEO of Unilever, which had $52 billion in 2014 sales, 
turned heads when he said natural disasters linked to climate change 
cost his company about $330 million a year.

"Perhaps Dean Scarborough, the CEO of manufacturing firm Avery 
Dennison, put it best in a recent interview with the Harvard Business 
Review. "Climate change threatens (our) supply chain, our customers' 
businesses, and the communities we're part of. If we want to stay in 
business for the long term, contributing to the fight against climate 
change is just smart strategy.

"For years, companies around the world bristled at the idea of going 
green. Their argument? We just can't afford it. But a dramatic plunge 
in the price of eco-friendly technologies - especially renewable 
energy - and the rise of carbon pricing, which charges firms for 
releasing greenhouse gases, has changed that calculus. Companies are 
now flocking to climate-smart investments, not only because it's the 
moral thing to do, but because it's good for the bottom line.

"A recent study that looked at a sample of 1,700 leading 
international firms found that the money they put into reducing 
greenhouse gas emissions saw an internal rate of return of 27 percent 
- an indication that those investments were paying off. Other 
studies, like one from Harvard, have found that companies with a 
reverence for environmental and social sustainability outperform 
firms that treat those issues less seriously."

End excerpts. Full analysis here:
http://cfi.co/europe/2016/01/ifc-climate-change-threat-and-opportunity-for-private-sector/

-- 
=================================================================================
"Ten thousand years ago there were between 1 and 5 million people on 
the planet.  There was plenty of room to expand and move, and 
resources seemed endless."

Niles Eldredge. Dominion. 1995. University of California Press.
===================================================================================
"But we need to be clear, the large-scale predicament and the 
emergent socio-economic stresses that we are beginning to experience 
has very little to with fraud, corruption and the greed of a tiny 
few. It has a lot to do with our human civilization running into 
limits."

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-25/anger-complicity-in-a-time-of-limits


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