[TheClimate.Vote] December 15, 2019 - Daily Global Warming News Digest

[Richard Pauli]

/*December 15, 2019*/

[COP25 unresolved disputes]
*Climate change: UN talks in Madrid hit rough waters*
UN climate talks appear to be in trouble as they head into extra time.

Fault lines have re-appeared between different negotiating blocs, with 
one delegate describing a new draft text as "totally unacceptable".

Alden Meyer from the Union of Concerned Scientists said the situation in 
Madrid was unprecedented since climate negotiations began in 1991.

Negotiators are working towards a deal for countries to commit to new 
carbon emissions cuts by the end of 2020.

Saturday saw the release of a new draft text from the meeting, designed 
to chart a way forward for the parties to the Paris agreement...
- - -
The conference in the Spanish capital has become enmeshed in deep, 
technical arguments about a number of issues including the role of 
carbon markets and the financing of loss and damage caused by rising 
temperatures....
- - -
For many delegates, the deadlock is intensely frustrating in light of 
the urgent need to tackle emissions.

"I've been attending these climate negotiations since they first started 
in 1991. But never have I seen the almost total disconnect we've seen 
here at COP25 in Madrid between what the science requires and the people 
of the world demand, and what the climate negotiations are delivering in 
terms of meaningful action," said Alden Meyer.

"The planet is on fire and our window of escape is getting harder and 
harder to reach the longer we wait to act. Ministers here in Madrid must 
strengthen the final decision text, to respond to the mounting impacts 
of climate change that are devastating both communities and ecosystems 
all over the world."

Jake Schmidt, from the US-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said: 
"In Madrid, the key polluting countries responsible for 80% of the 
world's climate-wrecking emissions stood mute, while smaller countries 
announced they'll work to drive down harmful emissions in the coming year.

"The mute majority must step up, and ramp up, their commitments to 
tackle the growing climate crisis well ahead of the COP26 gathering."
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50795294



[Inside Climate News & The Lancet]
*The Climate Change Health Risks Facing a Child Born Today: A Tale of 
Two Futures*
The latest Countdown report from the medical journal Lancet lays out the 
risks ahead, from the womb to adulthood.
BY SABRINA SHANKMAN
A child born today faces two possible futures. In one, the world 
continues to burn fossil fuels, making the child more likely to develop 
asthma from air pollution, at greater risk of vector-borne diseases, and 
more vulnerable to anxiety as extreme weather events threaten his community.

In the other, those risks are diminished because the world has responded 
quickly and adequately to climate change, with a large-scale shift away 
from fossil fuels.

These two, starkly different paths are the focus of a report published 
Wednesday by the medical journal The Lancet that shows how the future 
health of a child born today will be intrinsically linked to climate 
change, from the womb to adulthood.

"Without accelerated intervention, this new era will come to define the 
health of people at every stage of their lives," the authors write.

In the latest update to the Lancet Countdown--an ongoing study of the 
impacts of climate change on health--100 experts from around the globe 
write that the world's response to climate change will dramatically 
alter the lives of children.

Climate change is already impacting public health. The warming already 
observed worldwide has created a climate that is more suitable for 
disease transmission, less productive for crops and more prone to 
extreme weather than ever before. Nine of the 10 most suitable years for 
the transmission of dengue fever have occurred since 2000. Air 
pollution, primarily driven by fossil fuels and made worse by climate 
change, caused about 7 million deaths in 2016.

But that doesn't compare to what's in store, the authors write. With a 
global average life expectancy of 71 years, a child born today could 
experience a world that has warmed 4 degrees Celsius (7.2F) above 
preindustrial temperatures if greenhouse gas emissions continue at a 
high rate.

"We roughly know what that looks like from a climate perspective," said 
Nick Watts, a medical doctor and the executive director of the 
Countdown. "We have no idea what it looks like from a public health 
perspective, but we know it is catastrophic. We know it has the 
potential to undermine the last 50 years of gains in public health and 
overwhelm the systems we rely on."
The update to the Lancet Countdown examines 41 indicators of climate 
change--from heat extremes to the spread of vector-borne diseases to how 
health systems are responding to global warming. This is the fourth 
update to the Countdown, which was first published in 2015, and is the 
result of work from 35 academic institutions and UN agencies across the 
world, drawing from climate scientists, engineers, economists, political 
scientists, public health professionals and doctors.

There's one notable departure from earlier versions of the report: "This 
is the first time we feel we can say these health impacts have arrived 
in full," Watts said. "A while ago you'd see the fingerprints of climate 
change over a heat wave and that'd be it. Or small parts of vector-borne 
diseases. The more we look now, the more we see it everywhere."

This year's update also has a focus on the inequity of climate change.

"While climate change threatens the health of everyone, it harms some of 
us more," said Renee Salas, an emergency medical doctor who was the lead 
author of the U.S. policy brief associated with the Countdown. "With 
every degree of warming, a child born today faces a future where their 
health and well-being will be increasingly impacted by the realities and 
dangers of a warming world."

Threats at Every Stage of Childhood
The threat begins in the womb, where extreme heat and air pollution have 
both been found to contribute to low birth weights and neonatal deaths, 
said Salas. "If a child is born, they remain especially vulnerable to 
heat-related illness. Their bodies are not able to regulate temperatures 
as well as adults," she said.

With less developed immune systems, infants and young children are at a 
higher risk for certain water- and food-borne illnesses. They're also 
more likely than adults to develop asthma as a result of exposure to air 
pollution, or have existing asthma symptoms exacerbated.

As a child reaches adolescence, there are new concerns to worry about, 
like longer or more intense heat waves leading to heat stroke for 
student athletes, or the mental health impacts of extreme weather 
events. One study included in the U.S. brief found that students who are 
in a hot building have an impaired ability to think.

"This also gets into the equity issue. Which students are in the schools 
without air-conditioning?" said Salas. "Imagine a world where students 
are going to have a bit more difficulty learning essential information."

As a doctor, Salas said she's concerned about what all this trauma adds 
up to. "We don't understand yet what these cumulative impacts mean over 
the course of the life," she said. "Especially given the catastrophic 
health impacts that we're concerned about in the future. We need to 
better understand climate change as a threat multiplier on so many levels."

But there's another option, too.

"It turns out that when you look at all the things we want to do to 
respond to climate change, many of them are just cost-effective, 
sensible public health interventions in their own right," said Watts.

A child born in the United Kingdom today will see a dramatically 
different world, based on the current pledges to combat climate change. 
"By their sixth birthday, we would see a complete phase-out of coal. 
That means that they may not know what a coal plant looks like," he 
said. That's true for 32 other countries around the world.

By the time that child turns 21, if they're in Western Europe and the 
world has made good on its climate pledges, they won't be able to buy a 
vehicle that burns gas or diesel fuel. For those living in urban areas, 
"if we've done it right, they won't want a car at all. They will be 
living in more livable cities, healthier cities. They will be cycling, 
walking to work, because we will have the infrastructure to support that."

By the time they are 31, "the world will have reached net zero" 
emissions, he said. "Healthier diets, cleaner air, more livable cities."

*What Can Be Done?*
Though the report lays out a scary future, it also presents a host of 
things that can be done to combat the twin issues of health risks and 
climate. Those include decreasing planet-warming greenhouse gas 
emissions, by phasing out coal and increasing the amount of electricity 
generated from renewable sources, and decarbonizing the agriculture and 
healthcare sectors.

But not all the indicators are trending in a positive direction, the 
report notes. Though coal supplies had been declining from 2014 to 2016, 
they have since begun to increase. "The year 2020 is important for two 
reasons," the report notes. "It is the year that the implementation of 
the Paris Agreement begins, and the year during which most studies 
suggest global emissions must peak to remain on the path to achieving 
the 1.5C goal."

Gina McCarthy, the former head of the EPA under President Obama, said 
the recommendations in the report for how to adapt and mitigate climate 
change are crucial.

"If you look at what we can do at the state and local level today, we 
can make remarkable progress," said McCarthy, who was newly named to 
lead the Natural Resources Defense Council. "In the electricity sector, 
by moving to renewable energy that's cheaper, by looking at low emission 
vehicles, by looking at our transportation corridors--that we cannot 
just reduce air pollution but provide opportunities to expand those 
corridors, to look at biking and walking, to get people healthy again."

*It's About 'Survival of Our Civilization'*
One of the challenges, the experts acknowledge, is taking the 
conversation out of the political realm and into the personal.

"We need people to be hopeful about climate change," McCarthy said.

"These very scientifically vetted issues are reduced to political 
currency and a political currency that creates divisiveness and things 
don't get done," said former Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who was 
not part of the report. "We have to move beyond that. We have to elevate 
the discussion to one of truly the survival of our civilization as we 
move forward."
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13112019/health-children-infants-climate-change-impact-pollution-heat-lancet-countdown-study
- - -
[Report from the Lancet]
Lancet video summary

    *The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: 2019 report*
    Nov 14, 2019
    The Lancet
    The 2019 report of the Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change
    shows that climate change is already damaging the health of the
    world's children and is set to shape the wellbeing of an entire
    generation unless the world meets Paris Agreement targets to limit
    warming to well below 2C
    https://youtu.be/9Nw5zhsSgHQ

The 2019 Report
*Tracking the connections between public health and climate change*
An unprecedented challenge demands an unprecedented response.

Our 2019 Report tracks the relationship between health and climate 
change across five key domains and 41 indicators. See an overview of the 
2019 key findings below, or download the full report.

KEY MESSAGE
The life of every child born today will be profoundly affected by 
climate change, with populations around the world increasingly facing 
extremes of weather, food and water insecurity, changing patterns of 
infectious disease, and a less certain future. Without accelerated 
intervention, this new era will come to define the health of people at 
every stage of their lives.

KEY MESSAGE
A second path - which limits the global average temperature rise to 
"well below 2C" - is possible, and would transform the health of a child 
born today for the better, throughout their lives. Placing health at the 
centre of the coming transition will yield enormous dividends for the 
public and the economy, with cleaner air, safer cities, and healthier diets.

KEY MESSAGE
Bold new approaches to policy making, research, and business are needed 
in order to change course. An unprecedented challenge demands an 
unprecedented response. It will take the work of the 7.5 billion people 
currently alive to ensure that the health of a child born today is not 
defined by a changing climate.
DOWNLOAD THE REPORT 
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32596-6/fulltext
http://www.lancetcountdown.org/



[video of Live performances]
*Coldplay: Everyday Life Live in Jordan - Sunset Performance*
Streamed live on Nov 21, 2019
Coldplay
Watch the band's first performance of the Sunset part of their new album 
Everyday Life (out now, listen at https://coldplay.lnk.to/EverydayLife) 
at sunset in Jordan. You can watch the first part of the album performed 
during sunrise in Jordan by clicking the link at the end of this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wysCoAm2Yo
- - -
[Seeking the carbon zero live tour]
*Coldplay Will Stop Touring Until Its Concerts Are 'Actively Beneficial' 
To The Environment*

Coldplay announced it will not be going on a world tour for its latest 
album due to negative impacts concerts have on the environment. The 
band's frontman, Chris Martin, told BBC News that instead, the band will 
be taking time to actively seeking ways for their next tour to be 
sustainable and "actively beneficial" to the environment. "Our next tour 
will be the best possible version of a tour like that, 
environmentally…We would be disappointed if it's not carbon neutral," 
Martin said. "The hardest thing is the flying side of things. But, for 
example, our dream is to have a show with no single-use plastic--to have 
it largely solar-powered."

This news comes along with the release of Coldplay's latest album, 
"Everyday Life." Instead of going on a world tour to promote the album, 
the band performed two shows in Amman, Jordan, both of which are 
available to stream for free on YouTube. On Monday, Coldplay will also 
play a show at London's Natural History Museum in the name of an 
environmental charity.
*How Are Concerts Harmful To The Environment?*
While a live concert can lead to an unforgettable night, its effect on 
the environment might also continue to serve as a painful, long-lasting 
memory.

According to the Green Touring Network, concerts mainly spur 
environmental concerns due to their hefty carbon footprint and 
large-scale usage of plastic.

Other factors to account for include the environmental costs of travel 
for both the artists and fans, lighting, food waste, and the mass 
production of merchandise, among others.

*Coldplay Brainstorms Ways To Be More Environmentally Conscious*
Coldplay's manager, Dave Holmes, says the band has been making to 
"significant plans" to reduce their environmental impact since 2017.

In a statement to Billboard, Holmes said the band planned to continue 
meeting with environmental organizations and charities. Further, it 
plans to invest in projects that went "well beyond carbon offsetting."

Perhaps Coldplay's most ambitious goal is to reduce the carbon footprint 
of fans. With high hopes to make touring carbon-neutral, the band has 
thought about offering subsidized public transport or ride-sharing 
schemes for fans to get to their concerts.

*Last Coldplay Tour Brought In Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars*
Last year, Coldplay's "Head Full of Dreams" tour became the third 
highest-grossing tour of all time, raking in $523 million. Billboard 
reports the band traveled sold 5.4 million tickets throughout five 
continents. During the tour, the band visited 83 different venues, 
selling out 114 performances.

However, Coldplay has made it clear that their definition of "success" 
has shifted over the past few years. It's a mentality prioritizing the 
planet over profit.

"We've done a lot of big tours at this point," Martin said. "How do we 
turn it around so it's not so much taking as giving?"

*Summary and Takeaways*
Coldplay is sacrificing a lot by suspending its tours, especially 
considering how much money it has generated in the past. However, the 
band's striking decision is only fitting for an extremely urgent crisis.

Coldplay taught its fans to dream of paradise. By reducing the effects 
of climate change, Coldplay continues to give audiences a glimpse of 
what "paradise" could look like.

Emily Dao is a Writer at The Rising, a Copywriter for 7SecondMedia, a 
Business student at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and 
a former writer for the Daily Illini. For any inquiries or story 
pitches, reach out to emily at mediusventures.com.

https://therising.co/2019/11/24/coldplay-stop-touring-until-its-concerts-are-actively-beneficial-to-the-environment/
- -
[International Handbook guide for Green Touring ]
[PDF]*Carbon footprint of a tour - Green Touring Guide*
Project workshop "Green Touring", Popakademie Baden-Wurttemberg: Zora 
Brandle...this guide, this group is also the initiator of the Green 
Touring Network.
http://greentouring.net/downloads/GreenTouringGuide_EN.pdf


[The poster boy state]
*'Ground zero' for sea level rise is New Jersey, new climate data suggests*
NEPTUNE, N.J. -- Human-made gas emissions are speeding up sea level rise 
around New Jersey and, in tandem with coastal storms, will cause more 
frequent flooding for decades to come, according to a new report by the 
New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and Rutgers University.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/12/13/nj-ground-zero-sea-level-rise-rutgers-flooding-report/2636805001/



[Blocking science at COP25]
*Dr Peter Carter: summarising the lack of "climate emergency" at #COP25*
Dec 10, 2019
Nick Breeze
Dr Peter Carter
Director Climate Emergency Institute
IPCC expert reviewer
Co-author2018 Unprecedented Crime: Climate Science Denial and Game 
Changers for Survival
Interviewed by Nick Breeze at COP25 in Madrid, December 2019
https://youtu.be/oa13KrOvE2
- - - -
[voices continue]
*Former NOAA Head Calls for Renewed Social Contract for Science*
Jane Lubchenco says this is a "moment of truth" about climate change and 
that scientists need to think about their obligations and 
responsibilities to society.
By Randy Showstack  13 December 2019

Stating that "this is a moment of truth" about the climate crisis and 
related issues like biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruptions, 
renowned environmental scientist Jane Lubchenco has called for "a 
renewed social contract for science."

Lubchenco, a former administrator of the National Oceanic and 
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and U.S. undersecretary of commerce 
for oceans and atmosphere, is challenging the scientific community to 
think about "our obligations as scientists [and] our responsibilities to 
society, to each other, to future generations."

Lubchenco issued her renewed challenge at a 10 December session at AGU's 
Fall Meeting 2019 in San Francisco, Calif. It came 22 years after she 
initially issued a call for a new social contract for science. That 
earlier call urged scientists "to devote their energies and talents to 
the most pressing problems of the day"--including urgent and 
unprecedented environmental and social changes--"in proportion to their 
importance, in exchange for public funding."

"I believe that we have an obligation to be helpful to society," said 
Lubchenco, a professor at Oregon State University. "To me, it means that 
the responsibilities go beyond doing really cool science and publishing 
it to share it with other scientists. To me, that obligation means doing 
science and sharing it widely, but also working on issues that in times 
of serious need deserve particular attention."..
- - -
Lubchenco also focused on impediments in the culture of academia. "It 
doesn't reward engagement with society, it doesn't reward communication, 
it doesn't reward creating solutions."
She said that academia needs to embrace an incentives system that 
rewards these efforts rather than just rewarding successes in metrics 
such as grant and publication numbers. She also called for academia to 
provide more training and mentoring to improve communication efforts and 
active engagement with the broader community and to enable partnerships 
whether with local communities, nongovernmental organizations, or other 
groups.

"I think it's time for us collectively to make a quantum leap in our 
engagement with society," Lubchenco said. "It's time to change the 
culture of academia and to mobilize enabling conditions for science to 
serve society more effectively."
--Randy Showstack (@RandyShowstack), Staff Writer
https://eos.org/articles/former-noaa-head-calls-for-renewed-social-contract-for-science


[PAUL GILDING - INDEPENDENT WRITER & ADVISOR ON SUSTAINABILITY.]
*Climate Contagion 2020 - 2025 *so it begins
Wall Street's denial of climate dangers is setting us up for a 
2008-style financial explosion where "risk spreads in a way that cannot 
be contained or isolated".
Graham Steele, Stanford Graduate School of Business, December 2019

You can pretty much hear it now. It's like being in a forest and hearing 
the leaves rustling in the tops of trees, just before the storm hits. 
Then it comes with a roar, everything shakes, and we look around 
wondering what will fall - and will it fall on us.

This is how I see the global economy and climate change. Everything is 
ready, everyone knows it's coming, we're just waiting for the storm to hit.

When it does, it will be the climate emergency meets financial 
contagion. When the global market flips to FOMO - from fear of acting 
too early, to fear of being left behind as everyone races for the exits.

This moment was always going to come, and it was always going to be 
messy. Markets rarely move smoothly. But why now? Simply because all the 
practical economic and financial impediments are gone. The financial 
logic of acting is now impeccable, meaning the only thing left is for 
there to be a shift in sentiment - that moment of an intangible, hard to 
define flip in how the decision makers in the market see the world.  
That can happen overnight. And because markets hunt in packs - when they 
go, they'll all go.

There are four critical factors that lead me to conclude this shift in 
sentiment is now imminent - anytime from tomorrow morning to 2025, but 
not later.

Clean technology is available, scalable, superior and investable.
Physical climate change is obvious and accelerating.
Public engagement and political momentum are rapidly turning.
The financial markets are primed - from central banks, to lenders to 
stock markets.
The scale of change that will result - and the likely timing - can only 
be understood by the way these factors interact in combination, as a 
system. This is the way to understand markets and forecast their behaviour.

Key to this, and perhaps most critically, is the way markets behave 
synergistically with politics and public sentiment. The markets are not 
abstract machines. They are run by people who feel, think and fear. They 
see what we see.

To explore all this, I'll first expand on these four factors and then 
explore how they will interact and drive a financial contagion across 
the global market. A contagion that will tip the system into a new state.

*The Four Factors Shifting Market Sentiment*
1. The technology to fix climate change is ready - it's available, 
scalable, superior and investable. This is a real game changer. It has 
long been the case that the technology was available, but it was less 
developed, not widely deployed and more expensive. It was therefore 
assumed policy would be needed before it would go to scale - policy to 
address the market failure of not pricing climate change risks. Now, 
across energy, transport and food, countless climate solutions are not 
just available, but are broadly superior in performance to incumbent 
offerings. In most cases, they are also cheaper or at least price 
competitive and will keep getting more so. As a result, they are 
investable propositions today and capital is flowing into them at scale. 
Taken together this means deployment could easily be ramped up and there 
would be considerable economic benefit in doing so.

2. Physical climate change is now obvious and accelerating - with two 
critical impacts. Firstly, it is being viscerally felt by the public and 
that drives public sentiment which increases the pressure for a 
political response. If the markets believe a policy response is more 
likely in the future, they will start to price future market impacts 
today. Secondly, physical climate impacts bring the economic 
implications of the physical risks into much sharper focus. This applies 
to physical infrastructure, real estate, agriculture and the cost and 
availability of insurance. When climate change ceases to be an abstract 
future risk and is all around you, it is more likely to impact decisions 
on lending risk, insurance premiums, hedging strategies and much else. 
When cities like Sydney are blanketed in smoke from unprecedented 
bushfires, the humans that make market decisions start thinking.

3. Public sentiment and political momentum are turning and will soon be 
unstoppable. It might be hard to see in the era of laggard politicians 
like Trump and Bolsanaro, but they are the last hurrah of a dying 
philosophy and world view. The political context is shifting, driven by 
two factors. Firstly, by a new generation of vigorous and uncompromising 
climate activism that both represents and builds a new political 
momentum. Secondly by the irrefutable business and economic logic of the 
need to act, and the huge opportunity in doing so. When business and 
activists both demand change, politicians resist at their peril.

4. The financial markets are primed to act at scale. They are just 
waiting for the tide to turn. Then FOMO will click in and contagion will 
erupt. While markets have so far only acted at the margins in terms of 
global market impact, those actions show they are paying attention, and 
are waiting for the moment. Signs include government bonds being sold 
due to climate risk, the recent fizzled IPO of Saudi Aramco, high 
valuations of plant-based food companies and the continued slide in 
value of the oil majors. Central banks and regulators are now wide awake 
to the systemic risks. The market is engaged and waiting. And remember 
they hunt in packs.

By considering these factors together and in particular by understanding 
how synergies between them could drive contagion across the system, we 
can start to see how a market tipping point could occur - and do so any day.

Let's consider a few potential examples of the reinforcing interactions.

*Climate Contagion and Energy*
For capital to decide to leave the fossil fuel industry at scale - 
perhaps the most significant indicator of climate contagion being 
underway - two things need to happen.
First there needs to be a viable competitor for capital to go to. With 
the technology to replace the industry now superior, cheaper and ready 
to scale - that's done. Secondly, there needs to be a perceived risk of 
loss if the capital stays where it is - the risk of being late to the 
exits. The key issue that will drive this loss of value is not the level 
of demand today, but the level of belief that demand will be there in 10 
- 20 years' time. This is key because the fossil fuel industry today 
invests hundreds of billions of dollars every year finding and proving 
new reserves to meet the assumption of strong demand in 10 - 20 years. 
That future demand assumption is based on a belief that climate change 
is a 'future' risk, that policy is not imminent, that the public isn't 
engaged and that the new technologies aren't ready to scale.

Those assumptions were all true 20 years ago. Now they are all wrong. If 
the market starts to believe that demand won't, or even might not be 
there in 10-20 years, then hundreds of billions is suddenly wasted every 
year. If that sentiment turns, the value is gone. The already struggling 
oil and gas majors will not then transform, they will just fail, as 
incumbents usually do...
More at - 
https://paulgilding.com/2019/12/13/climate-contagion-2020-2025/#respond


[Destabilizing climates, same for economies]
*Four Ways the Climate Crisis Could Trigger a 2008-Style Economic Crash*
Hurricanes, fires, floods, and a sudden decline in oil demand could all 
have serious consequences.
By Geoff Dembicki
Dec 3 2019
Any day now, a catastrophic event caused by climate change could 
detonate a financial bomb that incinerates powerful companies, sends 
fireballs through our financial system, blasts the U.S. economy, and 
devastates millions of Americans. "This is an all-hands-on-deck moment," 
warns a new paper from the left-leaning Center for American Progress. 
"It's time for regulators to take decisive steps to ensure that the 
financial system can withstand climate-related shocks."

Instead, Wall Street's six largest banks are pumping money into fossil 
fuel investments that increase those risks. The over $700 billion those 
banks committed in financing to companies like ExxonMobil, Chevron, and 
BP from 2016 to 2018 is helping make possible Canadian tar sands 
expansion, drilling for Arctic oil and gas, fracking in West Texas, and 
other activities that drastically reducing our odds of being able to 
stabilize global temperature rise at the relatively stable threshold of 
1.5 degrees Celsius.

"There's a degree to which some of these [banks] are looking around and 
thinking, 'OK where are we going here and what are the risks?'" said 
Graham Steele, a director at Stanford Graduate School of Business. "But 
in the meantime they're going to keep trying to make as much money as 
they can."..
- - -
...Wall Street's denial of climate dangers is setting us up for a 
2008-style financial explosion where "risk spreads in a way that cannot 
be contained or isolated." Here are some of the ways that he can see 
this bomb being set off...
*1. A devastating Florida hurricane bankrupts a major insurer*
The world was shocked when Hurricane Andrew slammed into South Florida 
in 1992, causing $15.5 billion in damage and bankrupting at least 16 
insurance companies. But that could be quaint compared to what the 
physical and financial risks of a disaster are today due to climate 
change. Modelers with the Centre for Risk Studies at Cambridge 
University's Judge Business School estimated that a Category 4 hurricane 
that made landfall south of Miami, ripped into Tampa, and then made 
landfall again near Pensacola could cause $1.35 trillion in damage, as 
VICE reported earlier this year...
- - -
*2. Insurers flee California wildfire zones and mortgages crater*
Munich Re earlier this year drew an explicit connection between 
California's wildfires and climate change, something no major insurance 
company had done before. It warned that with wildfire activity up 400 
percent since 1970 and disasters including the Camp Fire causing $24 
billion in losses, insurance rates might become unaffordable to many 
people. At some point insurers could withdraw completely from danger 
zones...
- - -
*3. Massive declines in oil demand make investors panic*
In November, the International Energy Agency predicted that humankind's 
thirst for oil could plateau within a decade. This puts the typically 
conservative agency in line with analysts from companies like Bank of 
America and Fitch Ratings, who have also predicted a peak by 2030 due to 
the adoption of electric vehicles and other fossil fuel-replacing 
technologies...
- - -
*4. The housing market goes literally and figuratively underwater*
Despite more than 311,000 U.S. homes being at risk of chronic flooding 
in the next 30 years, lenders are still giving people mortgages in 
vulnerable areas. Up to $100 billion of coastal mortgages are issued 
every year. "If sea levels rise by 6 feet by 2100, as has been 
estimated, about $900 billion worth of U.S. homes would be 
literally--and in turn financially--underwater," the paper reads. "This 
includes more than half of the housing stock for almost 300 cities."..
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ne8amk/four-ways-the-climate-crisis-could-trigger-a-2008-style-economic-crash

- - -

[Resource paper from the Center for American Progress]
*Climate Change Threatens the Stability of the Financial System*
By Gregg Gelzinis and Graham Steele Posted on November 21, 2019
- - -
According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 
humans have already caused the planet to warm by 1 degree Celsius above 
preindustrial levels. Catastrophic floods, droughts, wildfires, and 
storms are becoming all-too-regular occurrences, and there is 
overwhelming scientific evidence that paints a clear and devastating 
picture of the changing climate. Under current projections, the overall 
social, environmental, and economic impacts of climate change could rise 
to catastrophic levels.3 One estimate suggests that if temperatures rise 
to 4 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels over the next 80 years, 
global economic losses could mount to $23 trillion per year--permanent 
damage that would far eclipse the scale of the 2007-2008 financial 
crisis. The speed and magnitude of actions taken to limit carbon 
emissions will determine how much these impacts can be mitigated over 
the coming decades.

This is an all-hands-on-deck moment. It is incumbent on policymakers 
across the issue spectrum--from energy and tax policy to infrastructure 
and financial services--to mitigate the impacts of climate change and 
facilitate a timely transition to the U.N. goal of net-zero greenhouse 
gas emissions by 2050 using the respective tools available under their 
jurisdictions. This issue brief focuses on financial regulators, who 
have so far ignored the clear systemic risk that climate change poses to 
financial institutions and markets. It's time for regulators to take 
decisive steps to ensure that the financial system can withstand 
climate-related shocks. In particular, the Federal Reserve Board and the 
Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) have the statutory mandates 
and tools necessary to coordinate the integration of climate-related 
risks into the financial supervisory and regulatory frameworks.

This brief outlines why climate change poses a threat to financial 
stability in the United States and details steps that regulators should 
take to integrate climate risk into their regulatory and supervisory 
frameworks.

*Why climate risk threatens financial stability*
Climate change is a systemic risk to the financial sector that warrants 
the heightened scrutiny and enhanced mitigation efforts of regulators. 
In the financial system, systemic risks are risks that have the 
potential to destabilize the normal functioning of the system and lead 
to serious negative consequences for the real economy. At least two 
categories of climate-related risks rise to this threshold: 1) the 
physical risks associated with more frequent severe weather events and 
lasting environmental changes and 2) the transition risks posed by the 
policy and technological changes necessary to achieve a greener economy. 
Such changes could strand carbon-intensive assets and affect the value 
of other financial instruments. The immense magnitude of estimated 
losses due to physical and transition risks, along with the potentially 
rapid nature of those losses, could have a severe impact on systemically 
important financial institutions and broader financial markets.

Importantly, financial institutions not only are exposed to the physical 
and transition risks of climate change, but they are also actively 
exacerbating those risks by continuing to provide substantial financing 
to activities that intensify climate change. The six largest Wall Street 
banks in the United States committed more than $700 billion toward 
fossil fuel financing from 2016 to 2018. The largest insurers held $528 
billion in fossil fuel investments, according to a 2016 survey, and the 
biggest asset managers have increased their holdings of assets tied to 
carbon-intensive industries by 20 percent over the last three years.
- - -
Regulators should also seek to integrate climate risk into other aspects 
of the supervisory and regulatory framework. Enhanced supervisory 
expectations for climate preparedness, climate-focused risk management 
standards, and higher risk-weighted bank capital requirements for assets 
that are sensitive to the price of carbon are all worthy of regulators' 
consideration.

The recommendations provided in this issue brief focus primarily on 
banks and systemically important nonbank financial institutions. 
However, other state and federal financial regulators should also 
consider the impacts of climate change and look to use their own tools 
for financial institutions within their jurisdictions.

*Conclusion*
Climate change is a threat to the stability of the financial system and 
falls squarely within the jurisdiction of financial regulators. They 
must wake up to this emerging systemic risk and take steps to bolster 
the resilience of financial institutions and markets. Waiting to act 
will only increase the likelihood of a climate shock destabilizing the 
financial system and severely affecting the broader economy. Workers, 
families, and taxpayers should not have to bear the burden later for 
regulators' failure to act today.

Gregg Gelzinis is a policy analyst for Economic Policy at the Center for 
American Progress. Graham Steele is the director of the Corporations and 
Society Initiative at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/economy/reports/2019/11/21/477190/climate-change-threatens-stability-financial-system/



*This Day in Climate History - December 15, 2010 - from D.R. Tucker*
Media Matters reports on a leaked memo that reveals the Fox News 
Channel's unfairness and imbalance with regard to climate science:

    "In the midst of global climate change talks last December, a top
    Fox News official sent an email questioning the 'veracity of climate
    change data' and ordering the network's journalists to 'refrain from
    asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period
    without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon
    data that critics have called into question.'

    "The directive, sent by Fox News Washington managing editor Bill
    Sammon, was issued less than 15 minutes after Fox correspondent
    Wendell Goler accurately reported on-air that the United Nations'
    World Meteorological Organization announced that 2000-2009 was 'on
    track to be the warmest [decade] on record.'

    "This latest revelation comes after Media Matters uncovered an email
    sent by Sammon to Fox journalists at the peak of the health care
    reform debate, ordering them to avoid using the term 'public option'
    and instead use variations of 'government option.' That email echoed
    advice from a prominent Republican pollster on how to help turn
    public opinion against health care reform.

    "Sources familiar with the situation in Fox's Washington bureau have
    expressed concern about Sammon using his position to 'slant' Fox's
    supposedly neutral news coverage to the right."

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2010/12/15/foxleaks-fox-boss-ordered-staff-to-cast-doubt-o/174317 

http://youtu.be/Kh0AmjHke1M


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