Category Archives: Global warming

Initial Responses to UN Global Warming Report

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: […]

Perverse Effects of Deregulation of Energy Markets

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, […]

Australia’s Drought: A Harbinger of Things to Come?

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 […]

Goldman: On Both Sides of the Carbon Trade?

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 […]

The Fault Lines on Global Warming

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 […]

Thinking the Unthinkable (Global Warming Edition)

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 […]