Rethinking Assets can Alter Our Political Equation of Climate Change


They emphasis the need to address asset revaluation concerns in the context of climate politics and suggests that a focus on domestic politics is crucial. They also discusses the role of obstructionist interest groups (like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers) and their influence on climate policy, pointing out that their opposition is often driven by concerns related to asset revaluation. If we put the concerns of asset holders who are losing their land and investments to climate change we can alter the conversation about what assets deserve our protection and which ones don’t.

Climate change is a clear threat to the LIO in either of two probable scenarios. One possibility is that the members of the LIO will do nothing much to mitigate climate change. That would represent a major substantive failure and a blow to the LIO’s legitimacy.Footnote 69 Alternatively, states might adopt pro-climate policies, but do so unevenly, with some implementing stronger and costlier policies than others. That unevenness would threaten the economic openness of the LIO, as jurisdictions with costlier pro-climate policies face competitive pressures to adopt measures such as border adjustment tariffs. In either scenario, climate politics is important for understanding the LIO’s future. The distributional consequences of climate change and decarbonization—and the obstructionist reactions that they generate—will be central.

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Canadian Universities to Educate Business About Climate Change

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A select group of universities across Canada have signed up to be part of a a new initiative to get long-term investors to care about climate change. The universities have endowment and pension funds that need to guarantee returns for decades (if not centuries) and thus have an obligation to plan ahead. That initiative is the new University Network for Investor Engagement (UNIE), and was founded with SHARE, an organization with a good track record of getting financial change. A world without catastrophic climate change is an easier one to make plans for, so let’s hope that UNIE helps decarbonize our economy by encouraging companies to care about the climate.

“These universities are showing leadership in addressing the climate crisis. Acting as investors, Canadian university pension plans and endowments can have a powerful influence on corporate behavior. Working together in one program amplifies each institution’s voice and leverages their power to bring about change,” said Kevin Thomas, Chief Executive Officer at SHARE.  

The UNIE initiative is focused both on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating the transition to a low carbon economy. 

“The actions taken by institutional investors today will play a crucial role in determining how society fares in the face of climate change,” said Thomas.

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Use a Bot to Make Ethical Investments

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A new company, OpenInvest, wants you to use its bots to make your monetary life more ethical. A very popular way to invest in the market is to use index funds, which are a smorgasbord of stocks which will hopefully rise with the stock market as a whole. Most people don’t control what’s in their index fund because it’s managed by a large firm. However, OpenInvest (and others) want you to design your own index fund based on your morals. The fund is created by answering questions and proclaiming what you don’t want to invest in (like arms or mining). The service is only available in the USA at the moment so let’s hope that competitors pop up proving ethical investing like this.

But instead of buying stocks through index funds, as the other robos do, OpenInvest uses individual stocks. Users click through a series of menus to create an “issue profile,” checking boxes to select investment themes—such as gender equality or reduced carbon emissions—as well as groups of companies to exclude. The preset screens lean left. Users can nix weapons manufacturers, tobacco companies, and even those whose executives have backed Donald Trump.

Based on those preferences, OpenInvest creates a basket of more than 60 stocks that both jibes with its customers’ wishes and should, the company says, track the broader market. It balances factors such as size, sector, and each stock’s sensitivity to the market’s ups and downs. OpenInvest says it’s still passive because beating the market isn’t a goal.

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It’s Time To Divest

The use of coal to generate electricity is coming to an end, and one of the many reasons coal’s time is up is thanks to divestment. Divestment of fossil fuels has been argued on university campuses for years and started largely as a moral argument that we shouldn’t profit off the reckless destruction of the panel. Since then the movement has evolved to the world of large investment companies because it also makes economic sense.

As global consciousness of the threat of climate change increases there is more and more reason to not invest in the fossil fuel industry. What’s more is that the low price of oil and the successes of renewable energy sources has made the case for divestment stronger.

The divestment movement shares a name and even a bit of the same emotional urgency as the campaign decades ago to get business to pull out of South Africa to press for change in the country’s apartheid system.

“I think that divestment can play the role of accelerating the development that we really need — we really need as fast as possible to get the carbon out of the energy system and divestment is one tool of doing it,” Reverend Henrik Grape of the Church of Sweden said on the sidelines of a conference in the European Parliament. The Church of Sweden decided in 2008 to get rid of its fossil fuel assets.

The movement today can count heavyweight investors like Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, insurance giants Axa and Allianz, major European universities, cities and churches among its supporters. All have made some form of commitment to pull cash from coal assets and, in some cases, other fossil fuels too.

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Thanks to Delaney!

8 Development Banks Combine Efforts for Sustainable Development

Eight development banks from around the world have decided the best way to encourage more sustainable transit development is to combine their efforts. They are looking at accelerating their investments in transport solutions that are better for the environment than current transport solutions. Transportation consumes a heck of a lot of oil and even marginal decreases in oil consumption can save money and reduce the rate of climate change.

In their statement, the African Development Bank (AfDB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), CAF-Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), European Investment Bank (EIB), Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Islamic Development Bank (ISDB), and the World Bank (WB) pledged to speed up action on:

  • Climate Finance: MDBs have recently committed to substantially increase financing for climate change mitigation and adaptation over the next few years. Transport is expected to play a key role in that commitment.

  • Low-carbon Transport Solutions: The MDBs will increase their focus on low-carbon transport solutions and will continue to harmonize tools and metrics to assess transport-related GHG emissions.

  • Adaptation: The MDBs will jointly develop a systematic approach to mainstream climate resilience in transport policies, plans and investments.

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