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+---- Thread: Global warming (/thread-62.html)
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-04-2017
(04-04-2017, 01:56 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 12:03 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: One of the scientists who demonstrated conclusively that global warming was an unnatural event with the famous “hockey stick” graph is now warning that giant jetstreams which circle the planet are being altered by climate change.
Professor Michael Mann said extreme weather events – such as the “unprecedented” drought in California last year, the flooding in Pakistan in 2010 and the heatwave in Europe in 2003 – were happening more often than they should do, even taking the warming climate into account.
This, he said, meant there had to be an additional factor.
But the Arctic has been warming much faster than tropical climates – the island of Svalbard, for example was 6.5 degrees celsius warmer last year compared to the average between 1961 and 1990. The land has also been warming faster than the sea.
Both of those factors were changing the flow of these major air currents to create “extreme meanders” which were helping to cause “extreme weather events”, Professor Mann said.
Last year, another leading climate scientist warned that the rapid rate of warming in the Arctic could have a “catastrophic” effect on the weather in the northern hemisphere.
In a paper in the journal Scientific Reports, Professor Mann and other researchers wrote that evidence of the effect of climate change on the jetstreams had “only recently emerged from the background noise of natural variability”.
They said that projections of the effect on the jetstreams in “state-of-the-art” climate models were “mirrored” in “multiple” actual temperature measurements.
Professor Michael Mann, of the Pennsylvania State University, said: “The unprecedented 2016 California drought, the 2011 US heatwave and 2010 Pakistan flood as well as the 2003 European hot spell all belong to a most worrying series of extremes.
“The increased incidence of these events exceeds what we would expect from the direct effects of global warming alone, so there must be an additional climate change effect.
“In data from computer simulations as well as observations, we identify changes that favour unusually persistent, extreme meanders of the jetstream that support such extreme weather events.
“Human activity has been suspected of contributing to this pattern before, but now we uncover a clear fingerprint of human activity.”
The jetstream normally flows reasonably consistently around the planet, but can develop loops extending north and south.
The researchers, who studied temperature records going back to 1870 as well as satellite data, said these loops could grow “very large” or even “grind to a halt” rather than moving from west to east.
10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change
The effect has been most pronounced during the past 40 years, they found.
“The more frequent persistent and meandering jetstream states seems to be a relatively recent phenomenon, which makes it even more relevant,” said Dim Coumou of the Department of Water and Climate Risk at Vrije University in Amsterdam.
“We certainly need to further investigate this – there is some good evidence, but also many open questions.
“In any case, such non-linear responses of the earth system to human-made warming should be avoided.
“We can limit the risks associated with increases in weather extremes if we limit greenhouse gas emissions.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-global-air-currents-drought-heatwaves-floods-global-warming-michael-mann-arctic-a7651581.html
Mann is a proven shyster. He grafted plots derived from supposed "treemometers" (which are actually hygrometers) onto the surface record then applied a highly suspect calculation in order to create the hockey stick.
Has there been an enhanced rate of rise since the 1850s? Yes. Is it as exaggerated as the Mannian "function?"
Sorry, I'm not buying.
The hockey stick is well-respected and irrefutable. As for your other charges, I don't know. Do you have a source that refutes Mann's calculations?
This site is pro-global warming, no doubt, but I see no reason to be skeptical of Skeptical Science.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/broken-hockey-stick.htm
Scientific American article on the subject. It's older, so the skeptical science site has more recent data that confirms the original Mann graph.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/behind-the-hockey-stick/
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-04-2017
(04-04-2017, 06:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 02:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 01:58 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 12:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 10:41 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Waste heat:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114009952
That is but one term in the equation.
Think about when you run a home appliance or piece of electronics.
Feel the hood of your car after its usage.
Touch a light bulb ... ouch!
Need I continue here?
Continue? I don't think you started. In the abstract I saw not even an assertion that this heat generated by electronic devices contributes to global warming.
Eric, where do you think that waste heat ends up?
Have you ever been on the roof top of a large building and stood near the cooling towers of the AC system?
Sorry; once again that's just your opinion.
It's physics. Learn some.
Show me some physicists who have published research that says heat from devices contributes to global warming. I haven't seen one article, post or website that says this, ever.
Speaking of AC systems though, it is quite established that more efficient heating and cooling systems and other building energy conservation methods save energy. That contributes to climate change reduction.
RE: Global warming - Ragnarök_62 - 04-04-2017
(04-04-2017, 10:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 06:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 02:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 01:58 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 12:08 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Continue? I don't think you started. In the abstract I saw not even an assertion that this heat generated by electronic devices contributes to global warming.
Eric, where do you think that waste heat ends up?
Have you ever been on the roof top of a large building and stood near the cooling towers of the AC system?
Sorry; once again that's just your opinion.
It's physics. Learn some.
Show me some physicists who have published research that says heat from devices contributes to global warming. I haven't seen one article, post or website that says this, ever.
Speaking of AC systems though, it is quite established that more efficient heating and cooling systems and other building energy conservation methods save energy. That contributes to climate change reduction.
Uh, Eric, heat, AKA infrared energy is just another form of electromagnetic radiation. Any number of processes generates these waves/photons[light]. You won't find much on anthropogenic infrared electromagnetic waves/photons because they in the larger scheme of things don't come close to CO2. CO2 does its dirty deeds by trapping infrared "light" and preventing it from escaping to outer space. So... Solar and anthropogenic infrared light just bounces off CO2 molecules and gets stuck. I'll also agree with you that conservation is an excellent way to reduce CO2 emissions. Also, did ya know that water vapor,CFC's, and methane are also greenhouse gases?
Here's an example of technology that works to dissipate infrared light from structures : http://www.livescience.com/57902-magic-foil-cools-buildings.html
So, there's your URL, man.
RE: Global warming - Bob Butler 54 - 04-05-2017
Just stumbled into a BBC article on Miami's fight against rising seas. If one of the richest stretches of seacoast in the world is having it's struggles, what is the rest of the world facing?
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-05-2017
(04-04-2017, 11:15 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 10:28 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 06:07 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-04-2017, 02:09 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:(04-04-2017, 01:58 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Eric, where do you think that waste heat ends up?
Have you ever been on the roof top of a large building and stood near the cooling towers of the AC system?
Sorry; once again that's just your opinion.
It's physics. Learn some.
Show me some physicists who have published research that says heat from devices contributes to global warming. I haven't seen one article, post or website that says this, ever.
Speaking of AC systems though, it is quite established that more efficient heating and cooling systems and other building energy conservation methods save energy. That contributes to climate change reduction.
Uh, Eric, heat, AKA infrared energy is just another form of electromagnetic radiation. Any number of processes generates these waves/photons[light]. You won't find much on anthropogenic infrared electromagnetic waves/photons because they in the larger scheme of things don't come close to CO2. CO2 does its dirty deeds by trapping infrared "light" and preventing it from escaping to outer space. So... Solar and anthropogenic infrared light just bounces off CO2 molecules and gets stuck. I'll also agree with you that conservation is an excellent way to reduce CO2 emissions. Also, did ya know that water vapor,CFC's, and methane are also greenhouse gases?
Here's an example of technology that works to dissipate infrared light from structures : http://www.livescience.com/57902-magic-foil-cools-buildings.html
So, there's your URL, man.
Water vapor is arguably the most important of greenhouse gases. A warming Earth implies more evaporation from the 70% of the Earth's surface and more water vapor. Cold air does not hold much water vapor, but warm air can. Here's what the American Chemical Society has to say:
... (W)ater vapor is the largest contributor to the Earth’s greenhouse effect. On average, it probably accounts for about 60% of the warming effect. However, water vapor does not control the Earth’s temperature, but is instead controlled by the temperature. This is because the temperature of the surrounding atmosphere limits the maximum amount of water vapor the atmosphere can contain. If a volume of air contains its maximum amount of water vapor and the temperature is decreased, some of the water vapor will condense to form liquid water. This is why clouds form as warm air containing water vapor rises and cools at higher altitudes where the water condenses to the tiny droplets that make up clouds.
The greenhouse effect that has maintained the Earth’s temperature at a level warm enough for human civilization to develop over the past several millennia is controlled by non-condensable gases, mainly carbon dioxide, CO2, with smaller contributions from methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and ozone, O3. Since the middle of the 20th century, small amounts of man-made gases, mostly chlorine- and fluorine-containing solvents and refrigerants, have been added to the mix. Because these gases are not condensable at atmospheric temperatures and pressures, the atmosphere can pack in much more of these gases . Thus, CO2 (as well as CH4, N2O, and O3) has been building up in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution when we began burning large amounts of fossil fuel.
If there had been no increase in the amounts of non-condensable greenhouse gases, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere would not have changed with all other variables remaining the same. The addition of the non-condensable gases causes the temperature to increase and this leads to an increase in water vapor that further increases the temperature. This is an example of a positive feedback effect. The warming due to increasing non-condensable gases causes more water vapor to enter the atmosphere, which adds to the effect of the non-condensables.
There is also a possibility that adding more water vapor to the atmosphere could produce a negative feedback effect. This could happen if more water vapor leads to more cloud formation. Clouds reflect sunlight and reduce the amount of energy that reaches the Earth’s surface to warm it. If the amount of solar warming decreases, then the temperature of the Earth would decrease. In that case, the effect of adding more water vapor would be cooling rather than warming. But cloud cover does mean more condensed water in the atmosphere, making for a stronger greenhouse effect than non-condensed water vapor alone – it is warmer on a cloudy winter day than on a clear one. Thus the possible positive and negative feedbacks associated with increased water vapor and cloud formation can cancel one another out and complicate matters. The actual balance between them is an active area of climate science research.
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/climatesciencenarratives/its-water-vapor-not-the-co2.html
I'll take science as the arbiter of reality over the hack writings of propagandists and activists any day.
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-05-2017
(04-05-2017, 11:15 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Irrigation is another factor that contributes to AGW.
Since I'm trying to teach stubborn Eric some physics, I won't (yet) explain why this is.
More standing water (usually in regions of warm-to-hot climates), and more evapotranspiration. Raise the level of humidity in the air, and the dew point rises. More water vapor in the air creates its own positive feedback.
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-05-2017
The graph of vapor pressure of water isn't quite a hockey stick, but it is close. It's almost a parabola.
![[Image: image_40.scale.large.jpg]](https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/climatescience/atmosphericwarming/climatsensitivity/jcr:content/articleContent/columnbootstrap_3/column0/image_40.scale.large.jpg)
Degrees Kelvin are on the same scale as degrees Celsius. Subtract 273.15 from the Kelvin measurement, whose "zero" is the absolute zero of physics (nothing can be cooled below that point) and is more useful for physical applications including meteorology, and one gets the Celsius temperature, whose zero is at the freezing point of water and whose 100 is at the boiling point of water, temperatures with which we are all familiar.
Air can hold about twice as much water vapor at 10° C (50° F) than at 0° C (32° F), about twice as much at 20° C (68° F) than at 10° C (50° F), about twice as much at 20° C (68° F) than at 10° C (50° F), about twice as much at 30° C (84° F) than at 20° C (68° F), and about twice as much at 40° C (102° F) than at 30° C (84° F).
To relate the temperatures, 0° C (32° F) is the freezing point of water, or about the temperature that you have in iced tea. 10° C (50° F) is unpleasantly chilly, but not too bad with a good sweater. 20° C (68° F) is borderline for bare flesh. That's a typical high temperature for San Francisco from May to October. 30° C (86° F) is about when 'warm' becomes unpleasantly hot, depending on wind speed and humidity. 40° C (104° F) is tolerable with low humidity so long as you drink plenty of water (not sugary or alcoholic drinks... iced tea is OK largely for the cooling effect), but generally unpleasant. 50° C (122° F) is dangerously hot, especially with high humidity as around the Persian-Arabian Gulf. Above that? At 45° C (113° F), the highest temperature I ever felt -- Dallas in 1980 -- things were nasty. I wore winter clothes as a defense against the heat.
During the last glacial maximum the ice sheets reached as far south as southern Ireland, a place that is now borderline -- subtropical -- and Louisville, Kentucky. Southern Ireland has a few palm trees, and Louisville gets unpleasantly hot in contemporary summers. You would have been lucky to find a lichen or moss near the southern end of the peak of glaciation.
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-05-2017
(04-05-2017, 11:15 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Irrigation is another factor that contributes to AGW.
Since I'm trying to teach stubborn Eric some physics, I won't (yet) explain why this is.
This isn't stubborn; I don't accept theories just applied without evidence that they contribute to global warming. Climate scientists say that fossil fuel burning and deforestation are the main contributors. Some also mention farming methods. None has mentioned heat from electronic devices or heating/air conditioning systems, or irrigation.
Learning physics is a nice sideline, but this is a global warming thread. It is not a matter of making conclusions of our own from physics; it's a matter of what the climate scientists say.
No doubt that energy efficiency saves energy use and this helps reduce global warming.
Dense urban areas with lots of buildings have slightly higher temperatures; I know that just from the weather reports. San Francisco stays a bit warmer in the nighttime than the suburbs. That's partly the ocean, but urban heat contributes.
RE: Global warming - The Wonkette - 04-05-2017
(04-05-2017, 05:01 AM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote: Just stumbled into a BBC article on Miami's fight against rising seas. If one of the richest stretches of seacoast in the world is having it's struggles, what is the rest of the world facing?Ah, Mara Lago. It was sure nice during its day.
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-05-2017
I just wonder how close Drump's estate is to the ocean. It would be poetic justice if he got some of his own medicine, and he was flooded out by climate-change-driven rising seas and their storms.
RE: Global warming - Ragnarök_62 - 04-05-2017
(04-05-2017, 05:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I just wonder how close Drump's estate is to the ocean. It would be poetic justice if he got some of his own medicine, and he was flooded out by climate-change-driven rising seas and their storms.
Eric, why wait so long? A well placed hurricane landfall should do the trick , man.
I also wait in baited breath for the The Hamptons to get washed away as well.
I wish I may, I wish I might, a cat 3+ hurricane to landfall at night , at the mentioned sites.
Just think of it as creative destruction.
![[Image: florida-hurricane-sign-6586373.jpg]](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/x/florida-hurricane-sign-6586373.jpg)
RE: Global warming - The Wonkette - 04-06-2017
(04-05-2017, 05:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: I just wonder how close Drump's estate is to the ocean. It would be poetic justice if he got some of his own medicine, and he was flooded out by climate-change-driven rising seas and their storms.
Mara Lago is right on the ocean. Rags is right -- its very vulnerable to a strong cat 3 hurricane.
![[Image: landscape-1469476258-gettyimages-9721203...ize=4320:*]](https://hips.hearstapps.com/toc.h-cdn.co/assets/16/30/2560x1280/landscape-1469476258-gettyimages-97212033-master.jpg?resize=4320:*)
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-21-2017
Even before houses get inundated, let alone ruined or obliterated by rising sea water, values for coastal properties in Florida could shrivel. So would some local tax bases.
Quote:When Cason (Mayor of Coral Gables, Florida) first started worrying about sea-level rise, he asked his staff to count not just how much coastline the city had (47 miles) or value of the property along that coast ($3.5 billion). He also told them to find out how many boats dock inland from the bridges that span the city’s canals (302). What matters, he guessed, will be the first time a mast fails to clear the bottom of one of those bridges because the water level had risen too far.
“These boats are going to be the canary in the mine,” said Cason, who became mayor in 2011 after retiring from the U.S. foreign service. “When the boats can’t go out, the property values go down.”
If property values start to fall, Cason said, banks could stop writing 30-year mortgages for coastal homes, shrinking the pool of able buyers and sending prices lower still. Those properties make up a quarter of the city’s tax base; if that revenue fell, the city would struggle to provide the services that make it such a desirable place to live, causing more sales and another drop in revenue.
And all of that could happen before the rising sea consumes a single home.
As President Donald Trump proposes dismantling federal programs aimed at cutting greenhouse gas emissions, officials and residents in South Florida are grappling with the risk that climate change could drag down housing markets. Relative sea levels in South Florida are roughly four inches higher now than in 1992. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts sea levels will rise as much as three feet in Miami by 2060. By the end of the century, according to projections by Zillow, some 934,000 existing Florida properties, worth more than $400 billion, are at risk of being submerged.
The impact is already being felt in South Florida. Tidal flooding now predictably drenches inland streets, even when the sun is out, thanks to the region’s porous limestone bedrock. Saltwater is creeping into the drinking water supply. The area’s drainage canals rely on gravity; as oceans rise, the water utility has had to install giant pumps to push water out to the ocean.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-19/the-nightmare-scenario-for-florida-s-coastal-homeowners
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-22-2017
Of course, California has always been in a zone of extreme variance of precipitation. This goes with extreme seasonality of precipitation, and one can't have much more seasonality than California. In a normal year, San Francisco is about as rainy as Atlanta in the winter and about as dry as the Namib Desert in the summer. There have been years in the recent drought when Phoenix had more rainfall than San Francisco.
There is much ambiguity of whether rainfall patterns will change, and how, under warmer conditions in the middle latitudes. Warmer oceans in the subtropics could mean that the "Pineapple Express" will prevail more in the winter in California, bringing warmer, moister, and truly tropical air masses on occasion to California during the winter. Such air masses will be hit by maritime polar air masses that originated in Siberia and crossed the Pacific, having gone from extremely cold to simply cool over the Pacific, setting up huge storms. But that is a comparative positive. The Central Valley and the desert regions of southeastern California will get much more rain.
RE: Global warming - pbrower2a - 04-22-2017
I attended a March for Science in Lansing, Michigan today... interesting speakers, and plenty of witty placards,
I joked: if President Trump wanted a hero he could have chosen Mendeleyev instead of Putin!
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-25-2017
https://futurism.com/climate-change-could-cause-conditions-literally-dissolve-sea-creatures/
Seemingly every day, new evidence of climate change’s devastating impact on our planet emerges. The latest sounds like something out of a horror movie: creatures are literally dissolving right before our eyes.
RE: Global warming - Ragnarök_62 - 04-25-2017
(04-25-2017, 12:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: https://futurism.com/climate-change-could-cause-conditions-literally-dissolve-sea-creatures/https://futurism.com/tesla-just-announced-plans-for-a-major-expansion/
Seemingly every day, new evidence of climate change’s devastating impact on our planet emerges. The latest sounds like something out of a horror movie: creatures are literally dissolving right before our eyes.
.... OK, so, Eric, why did this link go to the one above, stupid, teslas? I rather have a better idea, OK? Let's free ourselves from assorted auto fetishes? Yes, cars, cars, it's so stupid. I want to be free of the bondage of auto ownership. Here's the deal, OK? I want to be free of "stuff" owning me. Autos own me, at present , and I want to be free of this sort of shackles. My truck owns me, it forces me to pay for TTL, every year. Yes, my truck owns me. I want mass transit to free me of said bondage. Trucks/cars do creature dissolving and likewise, they also dissolve my soul, man.
Screw Tesla, it's a false path to nowhere. I want to be free of internal combustion engines, electric gizmos, etc. Freedom, freedom, man. I want freedom from cars/trucks. For, they all suck. Hark, I have seen the light, mass transit is a way to freedom from the internal combustion blight. Rags seeks the penultimate freedom, which is mass transit from here to there. So do ya dare? Ya want to pay the fare? It's all such a wear. Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahaahahahahahahaahahahahahahaahah. Smokie da weed. It your mind will feed, ah yeah. 
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-25-2017
(04-25-2017, 10:58 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote:(04-25-2017, 12:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: https://futurism.com/climate-change-could-cause-conditions-literally-dissolve-sea-creatures/
Seemingly every day, new evidence of climate change’s devastating impact on our planet emerges. The latest sounds like something out of a horror movie: creatures are literally dissolving right before our eyes.
Meanwhile our place is getting taken over by forest. And I'm getting old. At some point, the forest will win.
Yes, but maybe someone new will come along and cut it back again. So, who will win? In California, old growth forest is a small fraction of what it was. It's hard to tell now whether the forest will recover, or whether humans will keep cutting it down and ruining it with climate change until it disappears.
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-25-2017
(04-25-2017, 01:09 AM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote:(04-25-2017, 12:34 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: https://futurism.com/climate-change-could-cause-conditions-literally-dissolve-sea-creatures/https://futurism.com/tesla-just-announced-plans-for-a-major-expansion/
Seemingly every day, new evidence of climate change’s devastating impact on our planet emerges. The latest sounds like something out of a horror movie: creatures are literally dissolving right before our eyes.
.... OK, so, Eric, why did this link go to the one above, stupid, teslas? I rather have a better idea, OK? Let's free ourselves from assorted auto fetishes? Yes, cars, cars, it's so stupid. I want to be free of the bondage of auto ownership. Here's the deal, OK? I want to be free of "stuff" owning me. Autos own me, at present , and I want to be free of this sort of shackles. My truck owns me, it forces me to pay for TTL, every year. Yes, my truck owns me. I want mass transit to free me of said bondage. Trucks/cars do creature dissolving and likewise, they also dissolve my soul, man.
Yes, we need mass transit. Cars are not for everyone. And stuff can and do own us. Of course, lots of people like cars too, so we need pollution free cars too.
RE: Global warming - Eric the Green - 04-27-2017
Apr 27, 2017 @ 09:00 AM 577
Trump Might Not Believe In The Risks Of Climate Change - But Investors Do And They Are Taking Action
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikescott/2017/04/27/trump-might-not-believe-in-the-risks-of-climate-change-but-investors-do-and-they-are-taking-action/#5a28213daa13
Mike Scott , Contributor
I write about business, the environment, sustainability and investment
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
![[Image: 960x0.jpg?fit=scale]](https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/667952426/960x0.jpg?fit=scale)
Solar panels on a hillside in eastern China. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
The 45th President of the United States might think climate change is a hoax invented by the Chinese, but there is a fair chance that the investors who put money into his hotels and casinos think it is rather more serious than that.
New research from the Asset Owners Disclosure Project (AODP) reveals that 60% of the world’s 500 biggest asset owners (AOs), representing assets under management of $27 trillion, now recognise the financial risks of climate change and the opportunities that are created by the transition to a low carbon economy. That figure, revealed in AODP’s fifth Global Climate Index, is not just startling in itself, but it is an 18% increase on the figure last year.
The research suggests that regardless of Trump's position, investors will continue to press for change because they do not want to see their returns harmed by climate-related issues – whether those are physical (such as extreme weather events and sea level rise), regulatory (such as the UK’s Climate Change Act and France’s new world-first law requiring investors to disclose climate risk) or global initiatives such as the Paris Agreement that commits governments to cutting emissions to keep average temperature rises below 2°C.
There has also been a proliferation of initiatives that highlight the risks to investors, including CDP’s Carbon Disclosure questionnaire, the Principles on Responsible Investment, the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures and Science-based Targets.
In addition, the companies in which investors might put their money are also acting on climate change, with many of the biggest corporations – such as Apple; BMW; AB Inbev, the world’s largest brewer; General Motors; and Walmart – committing to source all their electricity from renewable sources.
This trend and ongoing technological advances are making renewable energy cheaper than ever before, as illustrated by the fact that clean energy capacity rose by 9% in 2016, but the amount of dollars invested was 17% lower than the year before. The price of solar power fell 83% from 2008 to 2016 and the price of wind power dropped by 73%. A growing number of projects are being developed without subsidies, even in sectors thought to be still expensive such as offshore wind.
And despite President Trump’s pledge that he will rescue the coal industry, the industry’s glory days are behind it, in the industrialized world at least. In April, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution, the UK used no coal to produce electricity while in the US, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) revealed that 70% of coal purchased in the US in 2016 went to power plants that are due to close by the end of 2018. When even the Kentucky Coal Museum installs solar panels to save money, it is clear which way the wind is blowing.
The efficacy of clean energy sources will be further boosted by the advent of energy storage, whose costs are also plummeting – lithium-ion batteries are 73% cheaper than they were in 2010 and will be a further 75% cheaper by 2030, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s founder Michael Liebreich.
Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board at Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Akio Kon/Bloomberg
Another factor is that there is more data available than ever before – on Bloomberg terminals, through indices from index providers such as MSCI and FTSE and through initiatives such as Carbon Tracker – illustrating both the risks of carbon-heavy investments becoming stranded assets and how to construct less carbon-intensive portfolios.
Nonetheless, there is still a significant amount of money being invested with no consideration of climate risks, with 68% of financial institutions in Germany, 67% in China and 63% in the US showing no evidence of taking any action on climate risk. By contrast, just 24% of investors from Canada, 26% in Japan and 29% in Switzerland were ignoring the issue.
AODP CEO Julian Poulter said: “The Paris Agreement sent a clear message of global commitment to tackle climate change. Institutional investors are responding by rapidly scaling up action to tackle climate risk and seize opportunities in financing the low carbon economy. This is recognised as a key issue by the Financial Stability Board and our Index enables asset owners and managers to report against the framework which will be recommended to the G20.”
But he added: “It is shocking that many pension funds and insurers are still ignoring climate risk and gambling with the savings and financial security of millions of people. As the number of these laggards falls, their exposure to market repricing grows significantly higher and a time may be approaching when it is too late to avoid portfolio losses.”
This year the index also looked at attitudes at the world’s top 50 asset managers (AMs), who invest asset owners’ money for them. They are taking the issue even more seriously, it seems, with just three firms (all from the US) ignoring the issue.
The report finds that although asset owners are making rapid progress, asset managers are ahead on a range of key activities:
90% of AMs incorporate climate change into their policy frameworks; 42% of AOs do this, almost twice as many as last year;
68% of AMs have staff focused on integrating climate risk into their investment; 18% of AOs have dedicated staff, a third more than last year);
20% of AMs calculate portfolio carbon emissions; 13% of AOs do this, up from 10% last year;
12% of AMs assess the risk of stranded assets in their portfolio; 6% of AOs do this, up from 5% last year.
Despite the progress in assessing climate risks, the index reveals that this has yet to be translated into investment in low carbon assets. “Across the Index, low carbon investment by asset owners has risen 68% to $203bn, but still represents only 0.5% of total assets under management,” Poulter said.
There is also a big geographical split, with Europe and Australia leading the way and North America and Asia lagging behind.
Europe is home to 20 of the 34 index leaders rated from AAA to A and no asset owners are ignoring climate risk in the Netherlands, Scandinavia or Ireland while only 5% of institutions in the UK and 3% in France are laggards. However, Germany is an outlier, with 68% of asset owners classed as laggards, thanks to 17 smaller funds with $382 billion of investments. Meanwhile, the six highest-rated asset managers are all European.
North America lags furthest behind, with asset owners averaging a D rating. The US is highly polarised: seven of its 183 asset owners (4%) are in the Leaders group but 115 are ignoring climate risk (63%, down only 4% from last year). However, in Canada the proportion of asset owners ignoring climate risk has nearly halved in a year, from 44% to 24%.
US asset managers account for 27 of the top 50 and manage $30.5trn, 70% of Index assets, but the average rating is also D. Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager with $4,645bn of assets under management, and Goldman Sachs ($1,252bn AUM) are rated C, while Vanguard ($3,500bn AUM) and State Street ($2,245bn AUM) are among 18 rated D. The only asset managers in the entire top 50 ignoring climate risk are Fidelity Investments ($2,060bn AUM), Affiliated Managers Group ($611bn AUM) and New York Life Investment Management ($528bn AUM).
Across Asia the average asset owner rating is D, but there are signs of progress. A quarter (26%) of Japan’s funds are Laggards with over $1trn of investments, but this has more than halved from 58% a year ago. Six of China’s nine asset owners are Laggards controlling $2.6trn, a position at odds with the country’s leadership on green finance within the G20 and its ambitious plans to invest in renewables, suggesting that there may be significant action that is not being disclosed.
Australia and New Zealand rival Europe, with Australia’s $7bn Local Government Super topping the Global Climate 500 Index, one of six institutions in the Leaders group, and overall its 29 asset owners achieve an average B rating. One of New Zealand’s two funds is also a Leader. However, Macquarie, the sole Australian institution among the top 50 asset managers, rates D. This is a cause for concern, given that it has just agreed to acquire the UK’s Green Investment Bank, Poulter pointed out.
“Climate change is becoming a central part of risk management around the world, and will transcend short-term political setbacks such as moves by the Trump administration in the US to roll back action on climate change,” Poulter said. “Once investors adopt prudent risk management practices they will not unlearn them.”