( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Cross-posted from THE ENVIRONMENTALIST
(From The Environmentalist Managing Editor – reprinted by permission)
Al Gore, addressing a United Nations summit on green investment, warned business leaders about the consequences of investment in technologies that did not reduce the carbon footprint, given the associated costs to both society and business of climate change:
UNITED NATIONS – Al Gore advised Wall Street leaders and institutional investors Thursday to ditch businesses too reliant on carbon-intensive energy – or prepare for huge losses down the road.
“You need to really scrub your investment portfolios, because I guarantee you – as my longtime good redneck friends in Tennessee say, I guarandamntee you – that if you really take a fine-tooth comb and go through your portfolios, many of you are going to find them chock-full of subprime carbon assets,” the former vice president said.
More below the fold…
Gore’s remarks took place at the under-reported but significant United Nations Investor Summit on Climate Risk where leading United States and European institutional investors released their climate change action plan:
Co-hosted by the United Nations Foundation, Ceres and the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships, the event was attended by over 450 investors, financial and corporate leaders from around the world. The signatories to the action plan included state treasures, controllers, pension fund leaders, asset managers and foundations, collectively managing over $1.75 trillion in assets. Press Release.
The Summit included commitments to direct significant and growning portions of investment funds into green technologies and included Denise Nappier, State Treasurer, Connecticut, Alex Sink, Chief Financial Officer, Florida, Bill Lockyer, State Treasurer, California, John Chiang, State Controller, California, Donald MacDonald, Pension Trustee Director, British Telecom…
California’s Treasurer, Mr. Lockyer, said that his State was among the action plan’s 49 signatories. Sustainability equalled profitability, and it was California’s intention to see that the world was green, clean and sustainable.
“We must seize the opportunity to make sound investment decisions and protect the environment,” said Mr. Chiang, also from California. The global renewable energy market was projected to grow from $40 billion in 2005 to $150 billion by 2015.
More info and links here.
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It looks like billions will be redirected toward green technologies through this initiative and it has also prompted banks like BofA to start disclosing the carbon impact of offered investments. More at the THE ENVIRONMENTALIST and on the U.N. Press Release.
things that sound like they make sense.
thanks for that.
the forced reallocation of American industry and energy consumption is needed in totalitarian Communist police states in order to prop up the western world’s industrial Chinese gold rush. Exploitation has never in the history of mankind been so, so profitable.
I have seen the statistic 500 million Chinese have never brushed their teeth. Big Al is set to reverse that statistic to 300 million Americans.
under capitalism, all the “green technologies” in the world will only supplement the “ungreen technologies,” and Gore, as a servant of global capital and one of its primary beneficiaries, will put his money in the “ungreen technologies” pot with the rest of the super-rich. This is just talk, as capital as a whole will not abandon what are clearly profitable investments; see this blog for more.