Guardian: Tackle Climate or Face Financial Crash

Some of the world’s largest pension funds, insurers, rating agencies and asset managers are heeding warnings from climate researchers to demand phase-out on all coal burning, reduced carbon emissions and introduction of carbon taxes. As ministers arrive for a UN climate summit in Poland, more than 400 investors signed a Global Investor Statement describing refusal to acknowledge climate change as inviting catastrophe. Unless there is action, one investment firm anticipates $23 trillion of global economic losses, more than four times the damages from the 2008 global economic crisis, reports Damian Carrington for the Guardian. “A key demand of the Global Investor Statement is to phase out coal-fired power stations across the world.” The United States, Japan and China continue to back new coal plants even though investors assert that action to reduce emissions would boost economic certainty, growth and jobs. Those supporting reduced carbon emissions caution that delays will make the transitions more difficult. – YaleGlobal