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Investment Risks from Climate Change
The COP21 climate change conference in Paris has focused attention on the issues of fossil fuel emissions, global warming and climate change. From an investment viewpoint what are the risks of climate change? How real is the issue and what could happen that could cause you to lose money? The European Commission provides the sort of background needed to get a grasp on the subject of climate change from the perspective of the European Union.
Climate change threatens to disrupt livelihoods, destabilize societies, and disrupt development in its tracks. The greatest single impact of climate change could be on human migration with millions of people displaced by shoreline erosion, coastal flooding and agricultural disruption – a crisis in the making.
Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all aspects of the climate system. Greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere will continue to increase unless the billions of tons of our annual emissions decrease substantially.
Drought in the Middle East may have been a contributor to the civil wars in Syria and Iraq and the resulting mass migration into Europe of refugees. Forty percent of the world population lives within 60 miles of an oceanic coast and 39 percent of Americans live near the coast. To the extent that sea levels might raise this is a significant issue.
Risky Business
US News writes about the huge economic costs if climate change is ignored.
“The U.S. faces significant and diverse economic risks from climate change.” No, that’s not a scary pronouncement from the Obama administration to justify its climate policies. That’s the first sentence of the report “Risky Business”- from a staid committee co-chaired by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former George W. Bush administration Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and retired hedge fund founder Tom Steyer – urging the business community “to rise to the challenge and lead the way in helping reduce climate risks.”