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<p><i><font size="+1"><b>May 30, 2020</b></font></i></p>
[follow the IMF money]<br>
<b>Equity Investors Must Pay More Attention to Climate Change
Physical Risk</b><br>
By Felix Suntheim and Jerome Vandenbussche - May 29, 2020<br>
The damage from the 2011 floods in Thailand amounted to around 10
percent of Thailand's GDP, not even considering all the indirect
costs through a loss in economic activity in the country and abroad.
By some estimates, the total costs of the 2018 wildfires in
California were up to $350 billion, or 1.7 percent of U.S. GDP.
Every year, climatic disasters cause human suffering as well as
large economic and ecological damage. Over the past decade, direct
damages of such disasters are estimated to add up to around US$ 1.3
trillion (or around 0.2% of world GDP) on average, per year.<br>
<br>
Direct damage from floods, heatwaves and droughts adds up to $1.3
trillion a year, on average.<br>
<br>
As scientists warn that global warming will increase the frequency
and severity of such extreme weather events, the IMF's latest Global
Financial Stability Report examines the impact of climate change
physical risk (loss of life and property as well as disruptions to
economic activity) on financial stability, and finds that equity
investors might not be pricing these risks adequately. The COVID-19
pandemic has shown how fast and extensive disruption of economic
activity can be (even for well-known types of risks), underscoring
the importance of preparedness and adequate risk assessment...<br>
graph -
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://blogs.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/eng-may-26-gfsr-chap-5-blog-chart1-764x1024.png">https://blogs.imf.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/eng-may-26-gfsr-chap-5-blog-chart1-764x1024.png</a>
...<br>
- -<br>
<b>What policymakers can do</b><br>
The current COVID-19 pandemic is a reminder that crisis preparedness
and resilience are essential to manage risks from highly uncertain
events that can have extreme economic and human costs.<br>
<br>
As mentioned above, expanding the availability of insurance and
strengthening the sovereign's overall financial strength can lessen
the impact of climatic disasters and hence reduce financial
stability risks.<br>
<br>
Developing global mandatory climate change physical risk disclosure
standards could be an important step to preserve financial stability
too. Granular, firm-specific information on current and future
exposures and vulnerabilities to climate shocks would help lenders,
insurers, and investors to better grasp this risk.<br>
<br>
Climate-change stress testing can provide financial firms and their
supervisors with a better understanding of the size of their
exposures and the associated physical risk. Over the past decade,
one in five of the IMF's own Financial Sector Assessment Programs
considered physical risks related to climatic disasters. A recent
example is the assessment published last year for the Bahamas.<br>
<br>
Without a doubt, the most effective remedy will be strong global
policy action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, addressing the
cause of global warming in a sustainable way, and conferring
benefits that extend well beyond the realm of financial stability.<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://blogs.imf.org/2020/05/29/equity-investors-must-pay-more-attention-to-climate-change-physical-risk/">https://blogs.imf.org/2020/05/29/equity-investors-must-pay-more-attention-to-climate-change-physical-risk/</a><br>
<p>- -</p>
[IMF sources]<br>
<b>GLOBAL FINANCIAL STABILITY REPORT</b><br>
<b>Chapter 5: Climate Change: Physical Risk and Equity Prices</b><br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/GFSR/Issues/2020/04/14/global-financial-stability-report-april-2020#Chapter5">https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/GFSR/Issues/2020/04/14/global-financial-stability-report-april-2020#Chapter5</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
[Biden and global warming]<br>
<b>Joe Biden has a chance to make history on climate change</b><br>
All he has to do is embrace the consensus that's waiting for him.<br>
By David Roberts - May 28, 2020<br>
- - -<br>
<b>Biden needs the left and climate is the best way to get it</b><br>
Biden won the primary because of strong support from African
Americans and older voters, and he has a good chance of peeling some
older voters off of the Trump coalition. But he needs turnout and
enthusiasm from younger voters and the party's base, too.<br>
<br>
There's no better way to get it than with bold climate policy.
"There continues to be a consensus that young people are necessary
to winning this election," said Maggie Thomas, political director at
Evergreen Action, "and this is among the issues that they care most
about."..<br>
- -<br>
When the League of Conservation Voters became the first big green
group to endorse Biden last month, he released a statement saying,
"I want to campaign on climate change and win on climate change so
that I can govern with climate change as a top priority for
legislative and executive action in the White House."<br>
<br>
In service of that goal, Biden asked his campaign "to commence a
process to meaningfully engage with more voices from the climate
movement, including environmental justice leaders and worker
organizations, and collaborate on additional policies in areas
ranging from environmental justice to new, concrete goals we can
achieve within a decade, to more investments in a clean energy
economy."...<br>
- - <br>
The Democratic Party goes into the 2020 elections unified on climate
change. They win and, taking advantage of the momentum, immediately
begin an aggressive program of executive and legislative efforts.<br>
<br>
To say the very least, this utopian scenario could go wrong at every
juncture.<br>
<br>
Biden might not move far enough to make an impression, either
rhetorically or on policy.<br>
<br>
Even if he does embrace sweeping policy changes, it's possible that
many people on the left simply can't be won over -- they have
defined their political identities in opposition to the party
establishment and are too invested in those identities to support
Biden no matter what he says about climate change. No one is quite
sure how much of the youth climate movement fits that description.
Even the leaders of those groups don't know for sure. They can
promise the Biden campaign enthusiasm, but no one will know until
the time comes whether they can deliver it...<br>
- - -<br>
If the climate coalition can overcome its longstanding internal
suspicions and rivalries and keep its momentum going, there is a
core of ambitious climate policy around which it can unite. And
several people I talked to confessed that they had begun to feel a
strange sort of hope that Biden just might be the guy who can sell
it, in a Nixon-goes-to-China kind of way.<br>
<br>
"Joe Biden isn't the climate champion that the movement wanted, but
he may be the champion they need," said Jason Walsh, executive
director of the environmental and labor group BlueGreen Alliance.
"The next president has to make a case for climate action that
resonates with Steelworkers in Pennsylvania just as much as it does
with urban, coastal lefties."<br>
<br>
After a great deal of patient work and trust-building, the left has
built that case for him, an ambitious, aspirational climate platform
that foregrounds jobs, investment, and rejuvenation. It fits with
Biden's natural strengths and addresses some of his greatest
political liabilities. All he has to do is pick it up.<br>
<br>
"If the brother wants to go down with a legacy," said Roberts, "he'd
be a damn fool not to embrace what we're doing."<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21265416/joe-biden-climate-change-democrats-young-voters">https://www.vox.com/2020/5/28/21265416/joe-biden-climate-change-democrats-young-voters</a>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Now is rehearsal for tomorrow]<br>
<b>Economic Giants Are Restarting. Here's What It Means for Climate
Change.</b><br>
Want to know whether the world can avert catastrophe? Watch the
recovery plans coming out now in Europe, China and the United
States.<br>
By Somini Sengupta<br>
May 29, 2020...<br>
- - <br>
Europe this week laid out a vision of a green future, with a
proposed recovery package worth more than $800 billion that would
transition away from fossil fuels and put people to work making old
buildings energy-efficient.<br>
<br>
In the United States, the White House is steadily slashing
environmental protections and Republicans are using the Green New
Deal as a political cudgel against their opponents.<br>
<br>
China has given a green light to build new coal plants but it also
declined to set specific economic growth targets for this year, a
move that came as a relief to environmentalists because it reduces
the pressure to turn up the country's industrial machine quickly.<br>
<br>
What course these giant economies set is crucial if the world is to
have a fighting chance to head off the blistering heat, droughts and
wildfires that are the hallmarks of a fast-warming planet.<br>
<br>
Just as their recovery plans are taking shape, though, the political
pressure on world leaders switched off: On Thursday, the United
Nations announced that the next round of global climate talks, which
had been slated for Glasgow in November, would be delayed.<br>
<br>
That meeting is now scheduled for November 2021, more than a year
and a half away. The delay comes at a time when the scientific
consensus says the world has very little time left to avert climate
catastrophes.<br>
<br>
The Glasgow talks are the most important climate meeting since the
Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015, after 20 years of negotiations.
Under the Paris pact, which was largely designed to work through
peer pressure among nations at annual meetings, world leaders were
expected to announce revised targets this year for reducing
emissions.<br>
<br>
That peer pressure is now suspended for a year. Advocates for
climate action urged national leaders to not squander the time.<br>
<br>
"If the necessary climate action can be embedded in recovery efforts
then this year will have been a year when we pivoted for good," said
Rachel Kyte, a former United Nations climate official and now the
dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. "If we are
distracted from climate action and fumble in the recovery, then we
will have pivoted to an even darker road."<br>
<br>
Not only has the Glasgow meeting been postponed, global protests
demanding climate action have come to an abrupt halt and the
pandemic has reinforced the impulse of nationalist leaders to reject
international cooperation...<br>
- - <br>
Governments are under considerable pressure to aim for what is
called a green recovery. A survey of central bankers and finance
ministers found broad support around the idea that the most
effective economic recovery measures would also reduce emissions,
including clean energy infrastructure.<br>
"The recovery packages can either kill these two birds with one
stone -- setting the global economy on a pathway toward net-zero
emissions -- or lock us into a fossil system from which it will be
nearly impossible to escape," the authors wrote...<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/climate/coronavirus-economic-stimulus-climate.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/29/climate/coronavirus-economic-stimulus-climate.html</a><br>
<br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Canadian Paul Beckwith rants about the deluge]<br>
<b>Ranting in the Rain on Climate, Coronavirus, Trump, Murders by
Police, and Other Worsening Mayhem</b><br>
May 29, 2020<br>
Paul Beckwith<br>
I needed to rant tonight while walking through a torrential downpour
in Ottawa tonight. Lots of utter crap and craziness is occurring
around this week. The Coronavirus has not gone away despite actions
of many, and we can expect many more severe waves. Far northern
Arctic heatwaves are unbelievable; major Siberian cities slashed a
previous record high of 12C (53.6F) reaching 25.4C (77.7F). Zombie
fires that smouldered under snow all winter reignited. Parts of the
US experienced incredible deluges knocking out dams, draining lakes
inundating towns. Trump is totally bonkers, and US cops are
murdering black folk. <br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypAhlL23HZI">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypAhlL23HZI</a><br>
<p><br>
</p>
<br>
[Digging back into the internet news archive]<br>
<font size="+1"><b>On this day in the history of global warming -
May 30, 2014 </b></font><br>
The Washington Post reports:<br>
<blockquote>"The methane that leaks from 40,000 gas wells near this
desert trading post may be colorless and odorless, but it's not
invisible. It can be seen from space. <br>
<br>
"Satellites that sweep over energy-rich northern New Mexico can
spot the gas as it escapes from drilling rigs, compressors and
miles of pipeline snaking across the badlands. In the air it forms
a giant plume: a permanent, Delaware-sized methane cloud, so vast
that scientists questioned their own data when they first studied
it three years ago. 'We couldn't be sure that the signal was
real,' said NASA researcher Christian Frankenberg.<br>
<br>
"The country's biggest methane "hot spot," verified by NASA and
University of Michigan scientists in October, is only the most
dramatic example of what scientists describe as a $2 billion leak
problem: the loss of methane from energy production sites across
the country. When oil, gas or coal are taken from the ground, a
little methane -- the main ingredient in natural gas -- often
escapes along with it, drifting into the atmosphere, where it
contributes to the warming of the Earth.<br>
<br>
"Methane accounts for about 9 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas
emissions, and the biggest single source of it -- nearly 30
percent -- is the oil and gas industry, government figures show.
All told, oil and gas producers lose 8 million metric tons of
methane a year, enough to provide power to every household in the
District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia.<br>
<br>
"As early as next month, the Obama administration will announce
new measures to shrink New Mexico's methane cloud while cracking
down nationally on a phenomenon that officials say erodes tax
revenue and contributes to climate change. The details are not
publicly known, but already a fight is shaping up between the
White House and industry supporters in Congress over how intrusive
the restrictions will be.<br>
<br>
"Republican leaders who will take control of the Senate next month
have vowed to block measures that they say could throttle domestic
energy production at a time when plummeting oil prices are cutting
deeply into company profits. Industry officials say they have a
strong financial incentive to curb leaks, and companies are moving
rapidly to upgrade their equipment.<br>
<br>
"But environmentalists say relatively modest government
restrictions on gas leaks could reap substantial rewards for
taxpayers and the planet. Because methane is such a powerful
greenhouse gas -- with up to 80 times as much heat-trapping
potency per pound as carbon dioxide over the short term -- the
leaks must be controlled if the United States is to have any
chance of meeting its goals for cutting the emissions responsible
for climate change, said David Doniger, who heads the climate
policy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an
environmental group.<br>
<br>
"'This is the most significant, most cost-effective thing the
administration can do to tackle climate change pollution that it
hasn't already committed to do,' Doniger said."<br>
</blockquote>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/delaware-sized-gas-plume-over-west-illustrates-the-cost-of-leaking-methane/2014/12/29/d34c3e6e-8d1f-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/delaware-sized-gas-plume-over-west-illustrates-the-cost-of-leaking-methane/2014/12/29/d34c3e6e-8d1f-11e4-a085-34e9b9f09a58_story.html</a>
<br>
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