Hey, everyone who blames Al Gore’s waistline for this climate change malarkey (along with a bunch of greedy, money grubbing scientists in league with the first “not a real American” President, and all those tree hugging libtards who just want crash and burn the US economy so China can dominate the world), I have some bad news for you. It seems the governor of the Bank of England as swallowed the Koolaid, and has come out as a true “hair on fire” climate alarmist! No really, he did.
And what’s worse, he says climate change is going to crash the world economy and lead to an global apock-ee-lypse !!!!! God’s honest truth, that’s what he said, in public, to a bunch of major league insurance types at Lloyd’s of London today:
Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England has warned that climate change will lead to financial crises and falling living standards unless the world’s leading countries do more to ensure that their companies come clean about their current and future carbon emissions.
In a speech to the insurance market Lloyd’s of London on Tuesday, Carney said insurers were heavily exposed to climate change risks and that time was running out to deal with global warming.
It’s possible someone spiked his drink, I suppose, or maybe they just lit his hair on fire, because he painted a pretty grim picture, economically speaking of what is barreling down the pike and headed straight for us human beings, and more importantly, certain very special corporate persons who may also face possible extinction, courtesy of an very angry Mother Nature (or maybe Gaia).
There is a growing international consensus that climate change is unequivocal.
Many of the changes in our world since the 1950s are without precedent: not merely over decades but over millennia.
Research tells us with a high degree of confidence that:
- In the Northern Hemisphere the last 30 years have been the warmest since Anglo-Saxon times; indeed, eight of the ten warmest years on record in the UK have occurred since 2002;
- Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are at levels not seen in 800,000 years; and
- The rate of sea level rise is quicker now than at any time over the last 2 millennia.
Evidence is mounting of man’s role in climate change. Human drivers are judged extremely likely to have been the dominant cause of global warming since the mid-20th century. While natural fluctuations may mask it temporarily, the underlying human-induced warming trend of two-tenths of a degree per decade has continued unabated since the 1970s.
While there is always room for scientific disagreement about climate change (as there is with any scientific issue) I have found that insurers are amongst the most determined advocates for tackling it sooner rather than later. And little wonder. While others have been debating the theory, you have been dealing with the reality:
Since the 1980s the number of registered weather-related loss events has tripled; and
Inflation-adjusted insurance losses from these events have increased from an annual average of around $10bn in the 1980s to around $50bn over the past decade.
The challenges currently posed by climate change pale in significance compared with what might come. The far-sighted amongst you are anticipating broader global impacts on property, migration and political stability, as well as food and water security.
Dadgummit, that’s straight out of the liberal fascist playbook! How did this happen, a responsible, intelligent, financial leader buying into the biggest hoax in history? Sure the insurance industry had a few bad years paying off claims for all these – admittedly – troublesome weather events, but life’s like that. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Insurance companies can always stop writing policies if they’re scared of what is a risky business, after all. But no, Mr. High-and-Mighty Governor Carney decided to give his captive audience his best impression of that meddling dirty hippy, Pope Francis, because he didn’t just stop there and offer the foregoing sensible advice. Oh no, far from it.
(cont. below the fold)
We don’t need an army of actuaries to tell us that the catastrophic impacts of climate change will be felt beyond the traditional horizons of most actors – imposing a cost on future generations that the current generation has no direct incentive to fix. […]
In other words, once climate change becomes a defining issue for financial stability, it may already be too late.
This paradox is deeper, as Lord Stern and others have amply demonstrated. As risks are a function of cumulative emissions, earlier action will mean less costly adjustment.
The desirability of restricting climate change to 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels leads to the notion of a carbon ‘budget’, an assessment of the amount of emissions the world can ‘afford’. […]
These actions will be influenced by policy choices that are rightly the responsibility of elected governments, advised by scientific experts. In ten weeks representatives of 196 countries will gather in Paris at the COP21 summit to consider the world’s response to climate change. It is governments who must choose whether, and how, to pursue that 2 degree world.
And the role of finance? Earlier this year, G20 Finance Ministers asked the Financial Stability Board to consider how the financial sector could take account of the risks climate change poses to our financial system.
As Chair of the FSB I hosted a meeting last week where the private and public sectors discussed the current and prospective financial stability risks from climate change and what might be done to mitigate them.
There are three broad channels through which climate change can affect financial stability:
– First, physical risks: the impacts today on insurance liabilities and the value of financial assets that arise from climate- and weather-related events, such as floods and storms that damage property or disrupt trade;
– Second, liability risks: the impacts that could arise tomorrow if parties who have suffered loss or damage from the effects of climate change seek compensation from those they hold responsible. Such claims could come decades in the future, but have the potential to hit carbon extractors and emitters – and, if they have liability cover, their insurers – the hardest;
– Finally, transition risks: the financial risks which could result from the process of adjustment towards a lower-carbon economy. Changes in policy, technology and physical risks could prompt a reassessment of the value of a large range of assets as costs and opportunities become apparent.
Hell, this bastard King of (The Bank of) England even thinks multinational companies should be forced to disclose to their “investors” the future costs of continuing to rely upon carbon based fuels. The nerve of the guy!
Carney said that following a meeting in London last week the FSB was “considering recommending to the G20 summit that more be done to develop consistent, comparable, reliable and clear disclosure around the carbon intensity of different assets”.
One proposal, he added, was the creation of an industry-led group, a Climate Disclosure Task Force, to design and deliver a voluntary standard for disclosure by those companies that produce or emit carbon.
“Companies would disclose not only what they are emitting today, but how they plan their transition to the net-zero world of the future. The G20 – whose member states account for around 85% of global emissions – has a unique ability to make this possible.”
In all seriousness, it’s good to see anyone who plays a prominent role in propping up our unsustainable and out of control global financial system acknowledge that business as usual cannot continue in the face of the reality of climate change. In fact, his speech is a direct clarion call to the politicians of the developed and developing countries that we need to do something, and something drastic NOW, to address the danger to the planet from the effects of carbon emissions and global warming, rather than continuing to kick the climate crisis can down the road.
Too bad our Congress has been hijacked by the dumbest, most misinformed, anti-science party in history. It’s enough to make one into a believer in a grand conspiracy theory that a bunch of sinister, evil men hiding in plain sight, decided to destroy the world for their own selfish interests. Oh wait …
