May 11, 2005
The Associated Press
International Herald Tribune
UNITED NATIONS, New York Trillions of dollars in investment clout gathered under the United Nations roof to talk about climate change - and money.
"It's all about our money," said Denise Nappier.
Nappier, the Connecticut state treasurer was one of a dozen state treasurers and comptrollers and hundreds of other heavyweight investors who joined in a daylong meeting on Tuesday to debate ways to pressure more U.S. companies into openly acknowledging the financial risks of climate change and exploring ways to reduce it.
"Global warming is likely to result in billions and billions of losses for public companies," said William Thompson Jr., who as New York City comptroller handles $82 billion in pension funds and other assets invested in publicly traded companies.
The more than 300 participants - including insurance companies, financial houses, union pension funds and other institutions - heard from former Vice President Al Gore, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and panels of leading investors and business executives about the link between climate and business climate.
They also heard from a Harvard University environmental scientist, John Holdren, who gave them an update on the latest climate research, saying it was increasingly clear that rising global temperatures caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" would intensify heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Everything from agricultural productivity to the health of the global insurance industry could be adversely affected. Big investors like the treasurers who manage state pension funds are particularly concerned about electricity and other energy companies, which may face government-mandated cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions, produced when they burn coal and other fossil fuels.
"If, in fact," said Mindy Lubber, who heads an environmentally minded investors group, CERES, "someone invests $2 billion in a coal-fired power plant, and the laws change - and they will change at some point - with those changes come perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of stranded costs."
Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates emissions cuts. But many view such U.S. controls as inevitable as evidence of warming mounts.
Investor groups, seeking fuller disclosure of risks, last year persuaded two Ohio-based power companies - Cinergy and American Electric Power - to issue reports examining the possible effects and financial uncertainties of such regulation, as well as steps they are already taking to reduce emissions, such as switching to renewable fuels.
UNITED NATIONS, New York Trillions of dollars in investment clout gathered under the United Nations roof to talk about climate change - and money.
"It's all about our money," said Denise Nappier.
Nappier, the Connecticut state treasurer was one of a dozen state treasurers and comptrollers and hundreds of other heavyweight investors who joined in a daylong meeting on Tuesday to debate ways to pressure more U.S. companies into openly acknowledging the financial risks of climate change and exploring ways to reduce it.
"Global warming is likely to result in billions and billions of losses for public companies," said William Thompson Jr., who as New York City comptroller handles $82 billion in pension funds and other assets invested in publicly traded companies.
The more than 300 participants - including insurance companies,
financial houses, union pension funds and other institutions - heard from former Vice President Al Gore, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill and panels of leading investors and business executives about the link between climate and business climate.
They also heard from a Harvard University environmental scientist, John Holdren, who gave them an update on the latest climate research, saying it was increasingly clear that rising global temperatures caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases" would intensify heat waves, storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Everything from agricultural productivity to the health of the global insurance industry could be adversely affected. Big investors like the treasurers who manage state pension funds are particularly concerned about electricity and other energy companies, which may face government-mandated cutbacks in carbon dioxide emissions, produced when they burn coal and other fossil fuels.
"If, in fact," said Mindy Lubber, who heads an environmentally minded investors group, CERES, "someone invests $2 billion in a coal-fired power plant, and the laws change - and they will change at some point - with those changes come perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of stranded costs."
Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates emissions cuts. But many view such U.S. controls as inevitable as evidence of warming mounts.
Investor groups, seeking fuller disclosure of risks, last year persuaded two Ohio-based power companies - Cinergy and American Electric Power - to issue reports examining the possible effects and financial uncertainties of such regulation, as well as steps they are fuels.
"If, in fact," said Mindy Lubber, who heads an environmentally minded investors group, CERES, "someone invests $2 billion in a coal-fired power plant, and the laws change - and they will change at some point - with those changes come perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars of stranded costs."
Unlike most of the rest of the world, the United States has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which mandates emissions cuts. But many view such U.S. controls as inevitable as evidence of warming mounts.
Investor groups, seeking fuller disclosure of risks, last year persuaded two Ohio-based power companies - Cinergy and American Electric Power - to issue reports examining the possible effects and financial uncertainties of such regulation, as well as steps they are already taking to reduce emissions, such as switching to renewable fuels.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/11/news/climate.php