This comment, “Climate is Changing. Now What?” by Marcelo Riensi on Global Economy Matters, discusses the types of actions available to deal with global warming: reducing emissions via conservation and improved energy efficiency; managing the costs and disruption as efficiently as possible; and finding replacement sources of energy: [T]he IPCC report can be summarized thus: […]
Read more...Below is a comment, On Climate Change and Good Sense,” from Samuel Brittan of the Financial Times on the UK’s Stern Report, which estimated the economic costs of global warming. The report has been criticized for using too low a discount rate, which would have the effect of making the financial impact look larger. Brittan […]
Read more...A good post by Aapo Markkanen at Global Economy Matters on the effect of global warming on migration and how that might interact with demographics. And he also points out that migration can exacerbate existing conflicts: The UN-backed panel on climate change released its latest report on climate change last Friday… [T]here wasn’t much that […]
Read more...Well, that isn’t exactly what he says, but close. Martin Wolf, the Financial Times’ chief economics editor, in his February 6 commentary, “In spite of sceptics, it is worth reducing climate risk,” says that economists are the big skeptics about global warming, and the possible consequences are too dire for them to continue to take […]
Read more...The Wall Street Journal’s editors have weighed in with their objections to the first of four reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued last week. And predictably, they dispute the work of 2000 scientists from 113 countries by claiming the “full scientific report” due out in May undercuts the “short policy report” issued […]
Read more...We have to admit to being a little slow on the uptake from time to time. We reported on the FT’s February 2 editorial, which commented on the publication of the first of four reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (Media watch item: still no editorial yet on this topic in the New […]
Read more...The attack on the UN’s Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change, which issued its dire first of four reports on February 2 (see today’s earlier post for details) began even before the report was issued. We found this story in the Guardian, thanks to Brad DeLong’s blog, Grasping Reality with Both Hands: Scientists and economists have […]
Read more...As you doubtless know by now, on February 2, the UN issued the first of four reports due out this year by the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change. The paper, six years in the making, draws on the work of over 2000 highly respected climate scientists from 113 countries. And the conclusions are pretty unambiguous: […]
Read more...This informative commentary in today’s Financial Times, by Jerome Guillet, an investment banker specializing in the energy sector, makes the observation that the energy projects that get built are the ones that are cheapest to get financed, but in the end, are often not the cheapest to operate. Utilities, which can obtain government guaranteed financing, […]
Read more...This story hasn’t gotten much coverage in the US, but Australia, which has never had abundant water, has gone through a prolonged drought which appears to be becoming semi-permanent. This is particularly problematic, not simply in terms of quality of living, but also because Australia is a major agricultural exporter (wheat and cattle), and a […]
Read more...Firms jealous of Goldman Sachs’ (GS) spectacular profitability often take aim at its appetite for situations rife with conflicts of interest. A few examples: in the recent New York Stock Exchange acquisition of electronic exchange Archipelago, Goldman acted as advisor to both the NYSE and Archipelago even though it was Archipelago’s biggest shareholder and a […]
Read more...A very interesing piece in the Guardian, “Davos ’07: it’s gone green,” points to surprising areas of agreement amongst the commercial cohort at Davos, but also exposes predictable fault lines. First the good news: Davos has gone green. The first thing you see on entering the conference hall is an invitation to make your visit […]
Read more...What a difference a year makes. Global warming had been dismissed in the business press as the creation of tree-huggers, liberals, and other enemies of free enterprise. Suddenly, it’s a hot cause (no pun intended). Monday, the CEOs of nine blue chip companies, including General Electric, Alcoa, Lehman Brothers, and Duke Power, joined in the […]
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