International Chamber of Commerce Survey Finds Improved Economic Climate

February 13, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

The Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and the Munich-based Ifo institute for economic research have released findings, which conclude that the

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Davos Strives to Make Climate Talk More than Hot Air

January 25, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsClimate change is back on the global agenda, with debate in the corridors at Davos given fresh impetus by U.S. President Barack Obama and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon both highlighting it as top priority this week.

Yet business leaders are still struggling to find the economic incentives to change current practices.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) has not held back in its own assessment of the dangers, with former Mexican president Felipe Calderon warning of “a climate crisis with potentially devastating impacts on the global economy.”

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, summed it up for any Davos doubters: “Unless we take action on climate change, future generations will be roasted, toasted, fried and grilled.”

There is a disconnect, however, between increasing evidence of extreme weather – from Superstorm Sandy in the United States in October to record heat in Australia this month – and the limited response from politicians and businesses.

In some cases the clash is stark, as highlighted on Friday when Greenpeace activists shut down a Shell gas station near the WEF meeting in protest at oil drilling in the Arctic that is made easier by a warmer world.

Many companies tout the opportunities presented by a shift to a low-carbon economy, yet the reality is that the continuing economic crisis has discouraged businesses and governments from developing a truly long-term view.

The rapid growth in shale gas – a greener alternative to coal when it is burned, although not when it leaks into the atmosphere – has also made renewables comparatively less attractive, adding to the challenge.

LACK OF URGENCY
The result is that while global investment in renewables is rising, the world still needs to spend $700 billion each year to curb its addiction to fossil fuels, according to a study issued by the WEF this week.

“There is a clear lack of urgency in the climate debate,” said Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo. “Big business is holding us back.”

Business, in turn, complains that the failure of governments to provide a clear regulatory framework limits its ability to plan for the future.

After past failures, governments aim to work out a new U.N. plan to address climate change in 2015 but it will only enter into force from 2020.

“Climate change is a long-term issue and it is not clear how it is going to play out or what the returns are going to be,” said PricewaterhouseCoopers International Chairman Dennis Nally. “So CEOs have to measure how this investment stacks up vis-a-vis other opportunities that can generate clearer returns.”

In practice, only a quarter of CEOs surveyed by PwC said they planned to raise investment in climate risks as cash is rationed and allocated to projects with the most obvious near-term commercial returns.

That doesn’t mean CEOs are not worried, according Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, who said virtually every corporation was affected to some degree.

“There was mostly silence on climate change for the last two years at Davos,” Krupp said. “But that has changed. The U.S. drought, especially, has grabbed people’s attention here in Davos because that has had a real effect on prices.”

Also chiming with business leaders is Obama’s argument that the United States cannot afford economically to fall behind in a global clean energy race dominated by countries like China, South Korea and Germany.

“The U.S. has to be among the leaders in this global discussion, so it is a positive development,” Andrew Liveris, CEO of Dow Chemical, said of Obama’s inauguration speech, in which he made climate change a priority for his second term.

RECORD LOW CARBON PRICES
U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon came to Davos with a similar message, saying he was very encouraged by Obama’s speech, while warning that climate change was approaching “much, much faster than one would expect.”

For investors, however, the climate issue remains hard to assess, as shown when the price of European permits to emit carbon fell this week to a new low below 3 euros a ton, providing minimal incentive for industry to change behavior.

Analysts estimate prices need to be between

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Global Risk Experts Lack Confidence in Governments on Economies, Climate

January 8, 2013Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleCommentsFragile economies and extreme weather have combined to crank up the global risk dial in the past year, creating an increasingly dangerous mix, according to the World Economic Forum.

Despite Europe’s avoidance of a euro break-up in 2012 and the United States stepping back from its fiscal cliff, business leaders and academics fear politicians are failing to address fundamental problems.

That is the conclusion of the group’s Global Risks 2013 report, which surveyed more than 1,000 experts and industry bosses and found they were slightly more pessimistic about the outlook for the decade ahead than a year ago.

“It reflects a loss of confidence in leadership from governments,” said Lee Howell, the WEF managing director responsible for the report.

Severe wealth gaps and unsustainable government finances were seen as the biggest economic threats facing the world, as they were last January. There was also a marked increase in focus on the dangers posed by severe weather.

The 80-page analysis of 50 risks for the next 10 years comes ahead of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) annual meeting in the Swiss ski resort of Davos from January 23 to 27, where the rich and powerful will ponder the planet’s future.

Bringing together business leaders, politicians and central bankers, Davos has come to symbolise the modern globalised world dominated by successful multinational corporations.

Chief executives arriving on their private jets may still ooze confidence but “Davos man” – and most delegates are male – has plenty to worry about these days.

“Most of the risks have gone in the wrong direction in the past year,” Howell told reporters on Tuesday.

On the economic front, eurozone instability will continue to shape global prospects in the coming years and the “associated risk of systemic financial failure, although limited, cannot be completely discarded,” the report said.

SUPERSTORM SANDY

Concerns about rising greenhouse gas emissions have grown notably in the past 12 months. The issue is ranked as the third biggest worry overall, while failure to adapt to climate change is viewed as the biggest single environmental hazard.

Superstorm Sandy, which wreaked havoc on the U.S. east coast in October, was a wake-up call for many. But it was not an isolated event in a year that also saw droughts, floods and the Arctic sea ice melting to a record low level.

Extreme weather was on display again this week as Australia grappled with fires and heatwave conditions, while temperatures in China plunged to a 28-year low.

“Two storms – environmental and economic – are on a collision course,” said John Drzik, chief executive of Oliver Wyman, a unit of insurance broker Marsh & McLennan.

“If we don’t allocate the resources needed to mitigate the rising risk from severe weather events, global prosperity for future generations could be threatened.”

This year’s Davos meeting takes as its theme “resilient dynamism”, in recognition of the need for governments and businesses to develop strategies to ensure critical systems continue to function in the face of such threats.

Outside the interlinked areas of the environment and the economy, the WEF identified other dangers, including increasing resistance of bacteria to antibiotics and the danger of “digital wildfires” created by the rapid spread of misinformation online.

More outlandish risks, dubbed “X-Factors,” include the rogue deployment of geo-engineering to counter climate change, for example by injecting particles into the stratosphere, or the discovery of alien life, which would challenge many assumptions underpinning religion.

 

Copyright 2013 Reuters. Click for restrictions.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: International NewsTopics: 50 top risks for 10 years, Davos Man, economic risk, environmental risk, global risks, Global Risks 2013 report, World Economic Forum 2013Have a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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180 Countries Agree on New Climate Treaty Agenda

May 25, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticle2 Comments

More than 180 countries agreed on an agenda for work on a new climate treaty by 2015 at United Nations climate talks on Friday, breaking a week-long deadlock over procedure.

“(The work plan) was not an easy issue to agree (on),” U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres told reporters after the negotiations held at Bonn in Germany.

“All parties needed reassurances from each other to allow them to undertake the work with a certain sense of comfort.”

U.N. climate talks in South Africa last year agreed a package of measures that would extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol after it expires at the end of this year and decide a new, legally binding accord to cut global greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, coming into force by 2020.

In the Bonn talks, the first negotiation session since that deal was struck, delegates have argued for over a week on how to organize work on a new climate deal and appoint a chair to steer the process.

Procedural wrangling during the two-week session showed that deep disagreements remained among participants and put a lot of pressure on talks in Doha, Qatar, at the end of the year to deliver, observers said.

“When people start fighting about agendas it is a symptom of lack of trust and of some pretty substantive areas of disagreement,” said Celine Charveriat, director of advocacy and campaigns at international development charity Oxfam.

Countries will still need to work more on some critical issues, including the length of an extension of the Kyoto Protocol, which nations will sign up to it and the level of emissions cuts that they will pledge.

They also need to identify ways to raise $100 billion a year of finance by 2020 to help developing countries tackle climate change.

Green groups and nations most vulnerable to the effects of global warming warn time is running out to avert disastrous consequences like increased extreme weather, ocean acidification and melting glaciers.

Countries have agreed that deep emissions cuts are needed to limit a rise in global average temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius this century above pre-industrial levels, a threshold that scientists say is the minimum required to avert catastrophic effects.

However, one of the main contributors to climate change, global carbon dioxide emissions, hit a record high last year, according to the International Energy Agency, which advises industrialized countries.

Some countries also look set to miss their emissions cut targets for 2020, putting the world on a dangerous trajectory towards a rise in global average temperature of 3.5 degree Celsius, research showed on Thursday.

“The majority of countries want to move forwards faster but..a relatively small group is holding up what the rest of the room wants,” said the European Union’s chief negotiator Artur Runge-Metzger.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

 

 

 

 

 

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Oregon Judge Dismisses Climate Change Lawsuit

April 9, 2012Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetArticleComments

A Lane County Circuit Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by two Eugene, Ore. girls and their mothers that accused Gov. John Kitzhaber of failing to protect the state’s resources against climate change.

Judge Karsten Rasmussen ruled that the court lacks authority to order the actions sought in the lawsuit filed last May by 11-year-old Olivia Chernaik and 15-year-old Kelsey Juliana.

The Register-Guard reported the suit was filed with the help of their mothers and funding from the environmental group called iMatter, as part of a national campaign.

The girls wanted the court to order the governor to collect more information on greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce the impact of climate change. The judge says it’s a political issue up to the Legislature.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Email ThisPrintNewslettersTweetCategories: West NewsTopics: Climate Change, Gov. John Kitzhaber, lawsuitHave a hot lead? Email us at newsdesk

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Science of Risk 2012 to focus on climate and hazards

As Climate Week places the spotlight on key environmental issues, Lloyd’s new-look Science of Risk prize is also turning its attention to climate change and natural catastrophes.

From March 12, Climate Week will see thousands of events take place across the UK as businesses and organisations look to raise awareness of ways to combat climate change.

Tackling climate change

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