Ms. Figueres called on investors to accelerate the greening of their portfolios so as to better cope with the threat of climate change as well as seize the opportunities that come with it.
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres urged investors to move away from investing in high-carbon assets and to start investing more on assets that lean towards a low-carbon economy.
Ms. Figueres called on investors to accelerate the greening of their portfolios so as to better cope with the threat of climate change as well as seize the opportunities that come with it.
Ms. Figueres made her call during the biennial Investor Summit on Climate Risk wherein hundreds of financial, corporate and investment leaders gathered in the U.N. Headquarters to discuss the implications of climate change for capital markets and their portfolios.
“The pensions, life insurances and nest eggs of billions of ordinary people depend on the long-term security and stability of institutional investment funds. Climate change increasingly poses one of the biggest long-term threats to those investments and the wealth of the global economy,” said Ms. Figueres.
“Institutional investors who ignore the risk face being increasingly seen as blatantly in breach of their fiduciary duty to their beneficial owners – men and women who have worked hard all their lives to put away something for their retirement and for their children,” she said.
The U.N.F.C.C.C. executive secretary noted that according to International Energy Agency, $36 trillion in global investments in clean energy is needed by 2050 to meet the internationally agreed goal of limiting global temperature rise to less than 2 degrees Celsius.
Ms. Figueres said that the continued and dangerous rise in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is in large part the direct result of past investments made, particularly those that are based on the use of fossil fuels.
“Investment decisions need to reflect the clear scientific evidence, and fiduciary responsibility needs to grasp the intergenerational reality: namely that unchecked climate change has the potential to impact and eventually devastate the lives, livelihoods and savings of many, now and well into the future,” she explained.
“The best available evidence is that $1 trillion a year is going to be needed for greening the world’s energy supply and catalyzing a transition to a low-carbon, resilient global economy that can also boost access to energy in developing countries,” she commented. – EcoSeed Staff
