Sep 17 2009
The world's largest global investors issued a joint call today for strong action this year from international policy makers in the fight against global warming.
Amid the growing focus on upcoming international climate treaty talks, global investors meeting at a Climate Change Forum in New York issued a major policy statement calling for a strong and binding international treaty that will reduce pollution and catalyze massive global investments in low-carbon technologies.
Signed by 181 investors collectively managing more than $13 trillion in assets, today's investor statement is the largest of its kind on climate change in world history.
Co-ordinated by four leading investor groups on climate change the US-based Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), the European Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), the Investors Group on Climate Change (IGCC) in Australia and New Zealand and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) operating globally, the statement formalizes the private sector's requirement for a strong, binding framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
Investors released the statement at an all-day International Investor Forum on Climate Change hosted by New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and keynoted by British economist Lord Nicholas Stern.
"Unmitigated climate change poses a threat to the global economy, said Stern, chair of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the London School of Economics and Special Adviser to the Group Chairman of HSBC on Economic Development and Climate Change. "But building a low carbon economy creates opportunities for investment in new technologies that promise to transform our society in the same way as the introduction of electricity or railways did in the past."