The United Nations Foundation and the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk (a Climate Bond Standards Board member) held an Investor Summit at the United Nations in New York. Climate Bonds and Green Bonds were top of the agenda.
One of the speakers was the UN’s top climate change official, Christiana Figueres, and she was very direct. See her press conference here (Christiana is at the 15 minute point).
She said “Institutional investors who ignore climate risk face being increasingly seen as blatantly in breach of their fiduciary duty to their beneficial owners – men and women who have worked hard all their lives to put away something for their retirement and for their children”.
That's right - the cat is out of the bag.
She pressed investors to accelerate the greening of their portfolios as one crucial step towards a low-carbon economy that can better cope with the threats and seize the opportunities from climate change.
“The pensions, life insurances and nest eggs of billions of ordinary people depend on the long-term security and stability of institutional investment funds. Climate change increasingly poses one of the biggest long-term threats to those investments and the wealth of the global economy.”
“Investment decisions need to reflect the clear scientific evidence, and fiduciary responsibility needs to grasp the intergenerational reality: namely that unchecked climate change has the potential to impact and eventually devastate the lives, livelihoods and savings of many, now and well into the future.”
You can see the full video of the 2014 Investor Summit on Climate Risk conference here.
See also this great UNFCCC graphic on "Why the falling costs of clean energy potentially creates stranded fossil fuel assets" - they even kindly cite Climate Bonds Initiative data.
