UNITED NATIONS — "In a daylong brainstorming "summit," a dozen U.S. state treasurers and hundreds of financiers and other major investors debated ways Tuesday to pressure more U.S. companies into dealing openly with the financial risk of climate change and with ways to reduce it. "Climate change poses a long-term financial and business risk for many of the companies in which we invest," said Connecticut Treasurer Denise L. Nappier, a co-chair of the event. "For us today it's all about our money."
Harvard University environmental scientist John Holdren gave the more than 300 participants an update on the latest climate research, saying it's 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 in the 21st century. "After years of debate, the scientific community has arrived at the conclusion that global warming is in fact a reality," said William C. Thompson Jr., who as New York City comptroller handles $82 billion (euro64 billion) in invested assets. "Global warming is likely to result in billions and billions of losses for public companies."
Everything from agricultural productivity to the health of the global insurance industry would 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, 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," said Mindy S. Lubber, who heads an environmentally minded investors group, CERES.
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."
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