A group representing investors that collectively manage more than US$47tn in assets has demanded the world’s biggest corporate polluters back strategies to reach net-zero emissions and promised to hold them to public account. The Guardian
A report commissioned by federal regulators overseeing the nation’s commodities markets has concluded that climate change threatens U.S. financial markets, as the costs of wildfires, storms, droughts and floods spread through insurance and mortgage markets, pension funds and other financial institutions. New York Times
Last summer, oil and gas-industry groups were lobbying to overturn federal rules on leaks of natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Their message: The companies had emissions under control. In private, the lobbyists were saying something very different. New York Times
Faced with plunging profits and a climate crisis that threatens fossil fuels, the industry is demanding a trade deal that weakens Kenya’s rules on plastics and on imports of American trash. New York Times
Heather Boushey is at the forefront of a generation of economists rethinking their discipline — just as the government deploys trillions to address a once-in-a-century emergency. New York Times
If we stay on the current business-as-usual trajectory, we could see two degrees as soon as the early 2030s, three degrees around mid-century, and four degrees by 2075 or so. If we’re unlucky with positive feedbacks…from thawing permafrost in the Arctic or collapsing tropical rainforests, then we could be in for five or even six degrees by century’s end. New York Review of Books
What caught the attention of analysts and, apparently, investors, was the ambitious plan that Bernard Looney, the chief executive, set out for making over the London-based oil giant into a diversified purveyor of cleaner energy within a decade. On a webcast with analysts Mr. Looney described a transformation plan that Stuart Joyner, an analyst at the market research firm Redburn, said in a note to clients was “major, positive, thoughtful and largely unexpected.” New York Times
Our struggle is not an emotional concern. We are not burned out. We are being crushed by an economy that has bafflingly declared working parents inessential. New York Times
This is a seven-day New York Times crash course on climate change, in which reporters from the Times’s Climate desk address the big questions: 1.How bad is climate change now? 2.How do scientists know what they know? 3.Who is influencing key decisions? 4.How do we stop fossil fuel emissions? 5.Do environmental rules matter? 6.Can insurance protect us? 7.Is what I do important? New York Times
Oil and gas companies are hurtling toward bankruptcy, raising fears that wells will be left leaking planet-warming pollutants, with cleanup cost left to taxpayers. NewYork Times
© Stefan P. Schleicher 2019
