Global Investors Managing $20T in Assets Urge Climate Action

[tex-wyo-dem]

It seems even the monied elite are seeing the writing on the wall...

Global Investors Managing $20T in Assets Urge Climate Action

By Robert Kropp
Published October 21, 2011

It will require $500 billion a year in clean energy investment to keep climate change from increasing global temperatures by two degrees Celsius. If global warming increases by that amount, not only will some of the impacts become irreversible, climate scientists have been warning for years; in fact, impacts such as extreme weather events will multiply.

It is because of this impending crisis that world leaders agreed to a two degrees Celsius limit in global warming at the COP16 meeting in Cancun last year. But the agreement has been followed by an absence of regulatory enforcement, especially here in the US, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2010 were the highest ever recorded.

Furthermore, "levels of investments in low-carbon technology and infrastructure are substantially lower than the $500 billion per year deemed necessary," a coalition of institutional investors stated today.

The 2011 Global Investor Statement on Climate Change, issued by the United Nations' Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), has been endorsed by 285 investors representing more than $20 trillion in assets. Investor groups calling for public policies to stimulate private sector investment include the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and the Investors Group on Climate Change (IGCC).

<more...http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2011/10/21/global-investors-managing-20t-assets-urge-climate-action>